


The Waiting Place

by edochen



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edochen/pseuds/edochen
Summary: After the events on Altamid and eighteen months to spare before the Enterprise is ready to fly again, Kirk feels lonelier than ever before and only copes by returning to old patterns. A country doctor staying in Yorktown isn’t going to change that.AU where all of TAOS events occurred, only, McCoy wasn’t there.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 28
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

_Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best._

_Wherever you go, you will top all the rest._

_Except when you don' t_

_Because, sometimes, you won't._

Oh the Places You'll Go

*

**PART I**

Nothing had changed since he gained command, even when he sometimes tried to convince himself that it had. 

If anything it made everything harder. He had nothing left to prove, which in retrospect, had been the main driver for most of his life’s decisions. Hell, he wouldn’t even have joined Starfleet had he not known it would piss someone, somewhere, off. He wouldn’t have cheated at the Kobayashi either if they didn’t tell him that he couldn’t win. And he wouldn’t have thrown away everything to stow-away on the flagship afterwards.

Was he even allowed to feel this lost while being captain of a crew of four hundred and thirty?

*

**CHAPTER 1**

*

He didn’t want to worry Spock, he had is own problems and they were far bigger than his own.

They often knew each other’s pain, something that was hard to explain. Their connection was too strong. His connection this his Spock, and his older counterpart.  That time he melded with the other Spock was the first time he didn't only suspect but knew how emotional the Vulcan mind could be . It was jarring then, sometimes it still was.

Could he have kept Spock from going to New Vulcan and staying with him in Yorktown instead? Without a doubt. But how could he be so selfish? He wanted Spock to be happy, to regain something he'd lost. He and Uhura had reconciled after all. Jim couldn’t keep him closer than he already did without destroying his chance to have a family. Something worthwhile, something good.

Spock knew he was lying when he said he would be fine on his own. That they should go to Sarek for his blessing. But he didn’t argue, because Spock had his priorities straight. He too didn’t want to lose what he had.

Then Scotty left for Earth to get Jaylah settled into the Academy. Which made Jim feel sentimental. Pike at one time had done the same, and he couldn’t let her be there on an unknown planet when she could have a friend. Keenser came with, of course. Scotty feigned indifference of course, but he would never leave without his friend.

Dr. Piper, Sulu, Chekov...many others had decided to stay in Yorktown. Decided to treat it like extended -- long overdue -- shoreleave. They all did what they could to make sure he wouldn’t be lonely. Coaxed him into joining them for drinks, dinners, parties. But what was he to do? On the ship he was their captain, but on the shore they should be free to have lives of their own. Even more so for Sulu who had a kid, a family, the whole shebang.

He didn’t fit in the whole family setting. Or, he didn’t think he did seeing as he’d never actually experienced it first hand. Sure, he’d call his crew his family, and that was no lie. Being in the vast universe he did notice the natural closeness that occurred.  The fraternisation that he  happily  turned a blind eye to, and the trust and affection they all held for each other . It was natural. But it wasn’t the family in the traditional sense. Whatever that traditional sense ought to be.

That at least wasn’t his fault.  Back when he was a teenager he knew whose fault it was, he’d been ready to point his fingers to the ones who ought to have loved him most  . His mom was an easy target, she didn’t make life easy, and he had no problems retaliating in kind and then some. He didn’t forgive her for wanting love, could never forgive her for that. And he had his issues with his mother’s taste as well. They were all grandstanders, all pompous asses, each one of them. Then as he grew older he got to understand that she was looking for someone who was long gone.  Looking for someone like his father, who had exceeded his own greatness in death so much that no one could ever compare . It didn’t stop Winona from trying. He couldn’t forgive but he understood.

He was mad at his father too, even though when it came to George there wasn’t anything to forgive. He was a hero, he gave his life for him, and he was gone before he even had a chance to miss him. But there was always that nagging feeling, that feeling of ‘what if’? What if George had been there, what would have become of him then? Would he have been different? Better? That fact that he hoped as much felt like a punch in his own gut. Apart from the Narada Jim made his decisions to fix his own messes. Messing with the Prime Directive, getting revenge… It wasn’t heroics, it was damage control.

He was older now, and in the end there wasn’t a black and white answer to whose fault it was. Hell,  perhaps  nobody was to blame, and it was all  just  bad luck. But that didn’t fix anything did it? He was still the same, older, old enough to know better. But not old enough to do better.

His first instinct was to go drinking, by himself.

There he’d met Lelal one night, in a bar overlooking the central plaza. She was alone too, wearing a sleeveless silver dress that ran down to her ankles. He was a creature of habit, she was sitting next to him at the bar and he bought her a drink, and then she bought him another. He’d seen the wedding band around her finger and hadn’t cared. She hadn’t either.

It could’ve been a one time thing, a minor slip up from him, a disregard of his acquired morals in a time of weakness. But it had felt like reprieve, some kind of spark of feeling, a sense of closeness.  He knew because he wasn’t quick about it, and no, contrary to popular belief he was never the ‘wham, bam, thank you ma'am’ type of guy  .  He did know how to make it fun, how to make it feel like something fun, instead of something sensual or imitating some kind of intimacy  . He had misinterpreted his own needs, couldn’t help taking his time. So it became more.  The way he traced his lips over Lelal’s spot as if he were trying to remember them all, and the fact that he coaxed her to stay after  . She hadn’t at the time, but by then the damage  was done .

He wasn’t scared either. Knew that he was too smart, and Lelal, well she was a joined Trill, there was no truer poof of excellence. So, there was no reason to stop, not when morals needn’t  be involved  . And guilt? Well, he’d never met her husband, and Lelal knew better than to speak of him. He knew he was human, an engineer who spent most of his time off-base. A ‘nice guy’ who, according to Lelal, was ordinary in much of everything.  He didn’t for a second believe Lelal regretted marrying him, he did believe she thought she deserved to have her cake and eat it too  .  As for him, he could’ve found someone else, some star-eyed young thing with a love for Starfleet command and less complications . He preferred Lelal.

He didn’t fight anymore, that was the one good thing he could  honestly  say about himself. He didn’t throw punches in bars anymore, no matter how bad he felt, no matter how much booze was in his system. Pike had taken care of that, too many bad experiences. He’d learned at least that when he fought he placed others in harm’s way.

He knew how to keep busy, made his intention of staying on active duty very clear to commodore Paris, who was happy to comply . The fact that most of it was deskwork and there was little to no flying involved was a minor setback. He started teaching. He knew how to stay focused on his tasks, even when he was longing for his ship again.

So he got by, sometimes  barely , and sometimes not at all. Still Starfleet, and clinging to the uniform and to the principle a little. But at the same time he felt himself slipping, sometimes, and then often. Because when the day was over he’d find a bar, he’d find Lelal or Lelal would find him. And he couldn’t bring himself to care about the consequences.

*

He never denied Lelal anything, there were no boundaries involved except for them being discreet for her sake . Lelal wasn’t the type to become attached, too level-headed, too sensible. She was bold though and she knew Jim didn’t sleep, not deep, not in a normal way. His doorbell rang and he rolled out of his bed and opened it without checking who it was. Lelal stepped in with two bottles of champagne and a large smile on her face.

“This is my last free day before opening night, and I want to make it count.”  She placed two bottles on the dining table, spun thrice on her toes, before letting herself fall into one of the chairs .

“Ready for the big day?”  Jim pulled a bottle opener, still on his kitchen countertop and picked up two bell shaped glasses, ringing together as they collided .

“Of course.” She looked at Jim, her index finger resting on her bottom lip as she followed him with his eyes. “I can still get you tickets if you want.”

The sound that Jim made came close to a scoff. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He leaned over, arms bracketing around the back of Lelal’s neck as he picked up a bottle from the table. “The honor is yours,” he said, offering both the bottle and opener.

Lelal took them, then leaned to the left and bit in Jim’s upper arm, on the good side of painful. Jim pulled away and tutted, before pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck, his hands moving down to rest at her waist. Lelal laughed and with a loud pop removed the cork from the bottle. Pressing her lips against the frizzing bottleneck. “He wouldn’t know, you know,” she said, placing the bottle back on the table. Jim was already placing wet kisses up her neck, moving to pick up a spilled drop of champagne as he moved up to her lips.  Her own hands,  characteristically  cold, immediately moved down the back of his shirt  impatiently  tugging at the hem . “I hate this shirt."

Jim bit her in the neck for that and let himself fall back, hands on Lelal’s waist as he pulled her with.  She yelped and giggled as she fell on top of him, her dancer’s training allowing her to pivot her legs within the momentum so that they were bracketing his sides  .  She turned to grab the open bottle again, took another big swig and then offered it to Jim who had to sit up to do so which gave Lelal the opportunity to straddle him  . “Gotcha,” she said with a wink. “Whoa, slow down sailor.” Jim had gulped down  nearly  half the bottle in a couple of large pulls, then handed the bottle back to Lelal.

“Thought we were celebrating?”

“We are,” Lelal replied with a grin. She pulled her legs tighter and ground down as demonstration. Jim licked his lips and repeated the movement, a little harder, a little tighter. She moaned  approvingly , her hands moving up and down the small of his back. “We will.”

Jim moved in and kissed Lelal.  First on the lips, then down her neck again, resting his tongue at the curve of her shoulder, his hands moving down under the hem of her short dress, fingers already moving under her panties  .  Lelal bit her lip, and rolled her hips, but her hand trailed down between them, under her skirt, grabbed Jim’s wrist and held it in place . “Can we celebrate on the bed? I don’t want to present myself tomorrow with carpet burn.”

“I would never,” Jim replied with an exaggerated intake of breath. “But if the lady insists.” He moved his hands to the small of Lelal’s back and with trained ease moved to stand.  Lelal laughed in delight as he lifted her, his cry somewhat exaggerated as he hitched her up a little higher before straightening up completely .

At least that had been the plan.

A shot of pain moved through Jim, like  being struck by  a knife. His cry turned into a whimper, and dropped his arms and hunched over, trying not keel over.

“Jim!” Lelal dropped to the floor on both feet and immediately lowered down on her knees. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“My back.  I think  I threw my back out,” he tried to straighten up a little, but got no further than halfway when he hunched back down in pain .

“Lay down on the floor. I’ll get you to a clinic.”

Jim let himself fall down on the floor with a whimper. “Are you crazy? How are you going to explain you bringing me to doctor at 04.00?”

Lelal was already using his comm to call. “I’m not stupid!”

So at 04:13 Jim found himself hauled into a cab, white as a sheet and clammy with sweat. As the automated vehicle moved him towards the nearest clinic. It must’ve taken less than five minutes, but felt like an hour.  And when the cab door opened Jim was already worried how in hell he  was supposed  to get to the door, when he realized that Lelal wasn’t at all stupid . Two nurses came outside to help him.

There was something very emasculating about needing to  be helped  into a clinic at thirty years old due to back pain  . Especially since he’d had worse, but none of that  really  mattered now. He  desperately  wanted to have every nerve in his body completely numbed out.

His doctor was a tall man with a mean look on his face and general examination so rough it low-key felt like manhandling . “You’ve got a tear in one of your annular discs. Nothing major to worry about though I can imagine it hurts like a mother.” The hypospray that got jammed into his neck was almost as painful as the pain shooting through his back.

“Now, now, don’t be such an infant,” the doctor grumbled. His focus on his PADD. “I can see here you’re captain of a starship, you oughta be able to take a harmless hypospray.” He faced Jim. “Well, this should keep you pain free for the next forty-eight hours, and I added a little sedative to help you sleep. Try not to do anything strenuous for the next week or so and lift from your knees next time. Good night.”

Jim  mechanically  shook the doctors hand and then let himself  be rolled  out of the clinic again. The pain had  mostly  gone and by the time he was in the cab he could even sit upright. Finally home he lowered himself on his bed with a groan of exhaustion. Lelal was long gone and had left no trace of her presence behind.

“Computer, what time is it?”

It was 06.00. Jim watched the ceiling, his hand tracing the sore spot where the hypo  was jabbed  in.


	2. Chapter 2

Commodore Paris introduced him to Dr. Leonard McCoy that monday as senior staff of the base’s medical deparment . He wasn't how he remembered him.

The cantankerous mien he remembered mellowed, and  was replaced by  something more inviting, charming even  .  He drawled out his words ever so  slightly  , and he  was unimpressed  with the chain of command, at least judging from his choice of words  .  Jim had to pretend several times to  be fascinated by  his PADD to keep from laughing while McCoy bashed his superior officers without restraint over outdated emergency protocols and  inadequately  briefed ground personnel  .  He only broke once, when McCoy had given commander Alievi a death stare when he implied repeating basic first aid for all security teams was a bit redundant .

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about safety, like he didn’t know first-hand what could happen when a team wasn’t  properly  prepared  .  How danger was around every other corner, and how many lives could  be saved  , or had  been saved  because there was a basic knowledge of taking care of the weak or wounded  . He knew it very well.  But the first time, when he  wholeheartedly  agreed with McCoy’s plight, when he insisted with Alievi that they could spare the funds  ? That was  just  Jim trying to get on McCoy’s good side.  Because it didn’t take Jim long to realize that McCoy wasn’t the type of man to waste time on people he didn’t particularly like . And he wanted McCoy to at least like him.

“You don’t seem like the safety first type,” McCoy said after, out of earshot, as they walked out on the main plaza.

“I’m not,” Jim said  easily . “But you can be very convincing.” It wasn’t so much flirting as it was gentle ribbing, something to get a rise out of McCoy because it was so easy to do so.

McCoy narrowed his eyes at him, and Jim had to focus to keep a straight face. He could tell McCoy was weighing his options. “How is your back, captain?”

“ Just  call me Jim, we’re not on a bridge,” Jim said, waving his hand  dismissively . “And my back’s fine. If I’m still feeling anything, it’s that hypo you struck me with.”

It was the first time he’d heard McCoy laugh. He didn’t know why he was so anxious to hear it again.

*

He began calling him Bones, because the first time he did, McCoy laughed in that surprised unguarded way  . Mouthing the words, and shaking his head. He let Jim call him Bones.  Even though everyone else called him doctor McCoy, and made sure everyone knew his profession at least once a day .

No matter what Jim did, the mundanity of Yorktown compared to captaining a starship was sometimes completely unbearable  .  He did what he could: he began teaching an advanced hand-to-hand combat class, like the one he’d assisted in when he was still a cadet  .  They were happy with his teaching skills and offered him the onsite refresher course on Survival Strategies, so he began to teach that too .

McCoy was his medical advisor, an easy job in assessing the safety and feasibility of tactical simulations offered during the class  .  Jim knew that these assessments generally took place only once, within the span of one hour or two, before the beginning of the course  .  McCoy was there almost every week, with a barrage of questions like whether it was  truly  necessary to drop off cadets --McCoy called them children -- on inhospitable Class M planets without any means of navigation as a way of training  . Or why the hell a medical team could only be on standby off-planet as opposed to planetside. So instead of  being ambushed  every other week, he began to schedule their meetings.  He would  affectionately  call it their friendly deliberations, it  mostly  consisted of him proving time and time again that he wasn’t, in fact, trying to kill his students . And every time McCoy was doubtful, but conceded. And with a low ‘alright then’ would leave his office, only for them to repeat the cycle the next week. Jim grew to enjoy those meetings very much.

Though they weren’t friends back then, Jim wouldn’t have called it that.  Mostly  because, despite their weekly meetings, Jim knew  absolutely  nothing about McCoy except for his name, which he didn’t even use  .  Of course he could have looked it up, a simple search in personnel files could tell him everything he’d wanted to know and then some . But that was against his own principles. He knew what it was like to be on the other end of that type of invasive inquiry. Had known first hand as a cadet what it was like to work with people who already formed their opinion on you by your past.

But he would’ve lied if he said he wasn’t curious. McCoy looked like a family man, hell, his behaviour was like that of a family man.  But he never  really  spoke of family, and he  was stationed  in Yorktown, so if he had anyone back home then he was very willing to spend time on the edge of explored space without them  . He was also a pacifist in true sense of the word.  Because even though animal husbandry had ended centuries ago, he even refused to eat or drink the replicated varieties of the product, because as he said, humans had done centuries without  . The most curious thing about McCoy was that he  really  ,  truly  did not like space. At all.

Jim could not believe this, and it was the only thing he disapproved of.  Because, first of all space was Awesome with a capital A. Then there was the fact that Starfleet operated in space  ? And a doctor, though very much needed off-world wasn’t a profession that couldn’t  be practiced  on earth.

Jim lived and breathed space, he was born in space and it had been the only place he would ever call home.  Reassuring in its uncertainties, there was something very soothing with the way space treated everything  equally  . Sure it was dangerous, but not  purposely  so. It was benign, and did not care who or what you were. He didn’t remember a time when he wasn’t looking up, hoping and wishing to be out there.

Later, when the jadedness came, and the doubts followed, even that wasn’t for his dislike of space. It was his doubts of his own place within it, his purpose there, but the love had remained. It wasn’t as if, if he had chosen for admiralty he would have gone back to Earth. That was never  really  an option.

So the fact that McCoy, for some reason or another, didn’t want to be there and still chose to be. Well that fascinated Jim to no end. And Jim was  really  tenacious when it came to his own curiosity. Relentless when he wanted to be.

*

He had forgotten about their weekly appointment.

Survival Strategies was his hardest class, which needed the longest time to prepare, only open to those who’d finished the initial course  . So its participants were generally experienced and  mostly  autodidactic.

Advanced hand to hand combat was different, it was an elective, which meant that the students were often young cadets, overzealous and determined to make a good impression on the captain of the flagship  .  Cadets trying to prove themselves were very prone to injuries, Jim knew from firsthand experience .

This time it was a broken nose, a chipped tooth and a lot of blood.  It had been easy to fix once they were at the hospital and he  certainly  didn’t need to stay around until the poor cadet’s nose  was realigned  , but he had .

So by the time he was walking back to his office he still in his sportswear and thinking of other things. Of skipping dinner to catch Lelal before her evening performance.

McCoy stood there, in front of his door, with his arms crossed and his brow arched.

Jim sucked the air  in between  his teeth. “Bones, I completely forgot.”

“Finally managed to kill someone?” McCoy nodded at his shirt.

“What.” Jim looked down and saw the streaks of blood. “Oh, that was an accident.  Just  a nosebleed,” he lied.

“If you say so." McCoy pulled his PADD out and waved it in front of Jim’s face.  “I approved your navigational training on Rigelius VII, we’ll keep a shuttle outside the gravitational field for backup  .  I still don’t agree with the unnecessary blind drop off and I still think it wouldn’t hurt to have ground support, but it is what it is .”

Jim took the PADD from McCoy’s hand to sign but before he could McCoy pulled it away with a sharp turn of his wrist. He looked at Jim with narrowed eyes, leaning closer. “When was the last time you ate, Jim?”

Whatever answer Jim had given, nothing would have kept McCoy from dragging him over to the nearest restaurant, even though an officer’s mess would have been  just  as well, and Jim could’ve  easily  done without anyway  .  They’d also almost gotten into a bit of an argument on Jim’s choice of dish: fries and a burger, but Jim did assure him that if he was going to eat at all, it sure as hell wouldn’t be a salad .

McCoy's look was that of dissaproval. “How can a captain of a starship take such a lousy job at taking care of himself. Don’t they teach you basic nutrition in that command track?”

Jim shrugged, and stuffed three fries in his mouth, cracking a smile when McCoy rolled his eyes.

“Combine that with the fact that you’re  barely  sleeping I’m surprised you’re still keeping your nose to grindstone the way you are .” He took a bite from his salad before pointing his fork at Jim. “And don’t look so surprised, of course I can tell. I’ve been working here long enough to recognize a commanding officer who’s burning the candle on both ends. Believe me you’re not the only one. Not by a long shot.” He paused and leaned back, crossing his arms and giving Jim an appraising look. “How long have you had trouble sleeping?”

Jim gave McCoy a long and hard look, which usually gouged some kind of reaction from others, but  merely  made McCoy arch his brow at him again  . “If I’d known I  was dragged  her for a physical, I’d have worn less clothes.”

“Watch it pretty boy,” McCoy said with a low voice, but his expression hardly matched his tone. “Not everyone in the galaxy  is charmed by  looks alone.”

“Pot and kettle, Bones,” Jim replied. He was only half joking. Jim would’ve lied if he said he wasn’t aware that his looks had a certain effect on people.  What humans often forgot was that his parlor trick hardly ever worked when it came to intergalactic space diplomacy . Earth beauty standards differed from other species, even that of other humanoids. To many humans were hairless, freaks with far too many digits.

Besides, McCoy was hardly the one to comment on looks.  Seeing as he was  objectively  handsome and carried it with the type of indifference Jim could never get away with .

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

McCoy could take acerbity about as much as he could dish it out.  He seemed unfazed by Jim’s firm dismissal, and continued to eat his salad like they’d been talking about the weather  . Jim knew this wouldn’t be the last time he was going to  be hounded  with this line of questioning.

They finished their meals with little words exchanged between one another,  all of  it about work  .  Jim had taken on a teacher’s aide for both his hand-to-hand and survival strategies class that McCoy deemed both too young and too inexperienced  . But Jim had also been about twenty-three when he’d been a TA for similar classes. He didn’t mind the discussion though, and he appreciated the attention  being taken  off of himself.  And like always their discussions, though serious in subject always kept its good-natured tone, even if it seemed like McCoy disapproved of about eighty percent of Jim’s choices .

Still when they finished eating and McCoy ordered himself a drink -- a bourbon no ice -- Jim followed suit because it wasn’t like anyone was waiting for him back home and he enjoyed McCoy’s company. McCoy’s personality mellowed considerably once he had a drink in his hand. The smiles that were few and far in between during daytime being offered freely. The sound of its low timbre even more enticing now.

“You know how I can tell that you aren’t sleeping?” McCoy had one of his feet on the edge of his seat, but leaned forward. He took hold of Jim’s fingers, the palm of his warm hands brushing over the back of Jim’s hand as he pressed  lightly  . “You’ve got cold hands, see.” His thumb moved  firmly  over the inside of his fingers. “And I see you clenching your fists sometimes.  Probably  to keep them steady.”  McCoy retracted his hand, and Jim only caught himself at the last second, when he was about to curl his fingers in to keep McCoy from moving . He clenched his fist anyway, savouring the heat that radiated from the touch.

“I’m flattered that you’re paying so much attention to me,” Jim said  nonchalantly  , but he hadn’t dared to look up at McCoy and meet his eyes for fear of doing something  really  stupid .

“But you’re going to ignore it all the same,” McCoy said. “Fine.”

Jim leaned back in his own chair in an attempt to create some more distance between them, his hands under the table to keep McCoy from seeing him thumbing his own fingers, movement mimicking McCoy’s . “You seem awful curious. You trying get fresh with me or something?”

McCoy chuckled, the liquid in his glass swirling as he lifted it from his lips. “I know better. Your reputation precedes you captain.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear Bones,” Jim replied, only half-joking.

"Perhaps. But I was here when you crashed that prehistoric ship in the middle of the plaza, Jim.  And I saw the vids of you  being thrown  about the stations’ gravitational field like a ragdoll fighting that nutjob,” McCoy said  . He took a last sip of his drink and placed it  softly  on their table, tipping it to the middle with a flick of his index finger. “You must be anxious in getting your ship back and getting off this giant snow globe.”

Jim chuckled. “Giant snow globe? Oh, you hate  just  about everything don’t you Bones?”  He was still rubbing his hands together under the table, had almost reached for his glass when he realized it was empty too . “So why are you here, of all places, on this ‘giant snow globe’?”

McCoy shrugged. “One word: divorce.” And Jim wasn’t sure what his expression was but it made McCoy wave his hand  dismissively . “A decade ago. But earth left most of its appeal after that, all five-hundred-million-square-kilometers of it.” He muttered the last part, some bitter memory souring the words. “Anyway, Yorktown is as fine as any other place in this godforsaken universe.”

“Hear, hear,” Jim said  jokingly , and he lifted his empty glass at McCoy who rolled his eyes but mimicked the motion.

The restaurant closed, but they were still talking. McCoy could talk, and he was funny in his unintentional cantankerous manners. There was an option of going home, and oh, Jim  desperately  wanted to take McCoy home, but it had been too fun. Not playing chess with Spock fun, nor driving a motorcycle at 180 km/h fun. It was that forget what time it is and not wanting it to ever end kind of fun. 

So they went to a bar after, close by, at the top of a high end hotel, and far too hip for both their tastes.  Filled with young cadets and so crowded that they  were pressed  shoulder to shoulder at the bar overlooking the Yorktown skyline  .  They bought bourbons first, then switched to something green, and then into something on fire, which McCoy groused about on presentation, and then proceeded to down in one go  . Jim  nearly  fell off his chair from laughter.

They continued to talk about  absolutely  nothing at all, which became easier with each emptied glass  .  He didn't want to miss anything, the lines in the corner of McCoy's eyes when he smiled, or the speed in which he could empty a drink and order another one . McCoy was pointing at some structure above them, talking about god knows what.

Jim allowed himself the simple pleasure of letting his hand rest in the nape of McCoy's neck as he leaned over, his lips grazing over and pressing against his ear to tell him in a stage whisper “I can’t hear anything you’re saying .”

McCoy moved  directly  behind him, grabbed him by the shoulder and nudged him to look upward as he pressed his own cheek  just  above Jim’s shoulders, his breath warm against his ear, making the hair of his arms stand on end  .  He was both relieved by the low backed stool he was sitting on that kept a space between them, keeping McCoy from  involuntarily  \-- he wasn’t exactly steady -- pressing flush against his back . He also didn’t listen to a word McCoy said, but still nodded every once in a while when he thought it appropriate.

They left  just  before the artificial dawn began, stumbling, McCoy’s arm draped over Jim’s shoulder to keep himself steady  . They shared a cab, McCoy snoring, his head lulling as he rested on Jim’s shoulder. The taxi’s navigational device led them to McCoy’s place first, which was closer. A drive that felt both  incredibly  long and  impossibly  short.

Jim  gently  squeezed McCoy’s upper leg, shifting to make McCoy raise his head. “Bones,” he whispered. “Bones, we’re here.”

McCoy’s eyes fluttered open, his eyes an amber yellow in the reflection of the citylights. He groaned and his head dropped back.

“Ok?” Jim asked. “I can --” he moved to place his arms underneath McCoy’s arm.

“No, no,” McCoy said with a soft voice. “I got it.”  He didn’t sound very convinced of himself, and he groaned again as he rolled himself out of the cab on his hands and knees, then straightened  . “I got it.” He began to walk to the front of his building and Jim watched him limping  slowly  but  surely .

“Godspeed, Bones.”

McCoy lifted his hand and let it drop with a flop, but didn’t turn as he kept walking.  Jim waited until McCoy was inside when he finally closed the cab-door and it continued driving  .  With his eyes closed he could still feel McCoy’s breath on his neck, the steady flow of air that made him shudder at the thought .

He called Lelal, she answered on the third try.

He wasn’t sure what he’d said but by the time he had found his way stumbling to his own home she was waiting for him by the front door with her arms crossed and her brows raised .

“Baby!” he said  exuberantly . He pressed her flush against him and kissed her.

With her usual agility she lifted herself up by his shoulders and locked her ankles around his back. She broke the kiss to punch in Jim’s access code with a wrinkled nose. “You reek, Jim.”

“I do?”  Jim walked the both of them through the door,  nearly  stumbling twice but for Lelal who  easily  shifted herself like a counterweight .

“Yes,” Lelal replied, but if she minded it very much she was making a bad show of it. “It’s vile.”

Jim giggled, he was walking them into the bedroom until he hit the edge of the bed, letting themselves fall into the mattress, stifling Lelal’s surprised gasp as he found her mouth again, and kissing her with such fervour that by the time he pulled away she was already  impatiently  rolling her hips up .

“You love me vile.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jim didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping when the smell of fresh coffee woke him up. He opened his eyes cursing at the bright light shining through the windows, his head pounding.  
  
“Lee,” he croaked. He coughed, his throat felt raw. “Lelal.”  
  
Lelal’s voice came from the living room. “Here.”  
  
Jim stepped out of bed and pulled on some sweatpants before heading into the next room. Lelal was sitting on the kitchen counter wearing one of Jim’s captain’s shirts, which was so big it slipped off her shoulder. She was peeling an apple. “How’re you feeling?”  
  
Jim groaned. He walked over to the countertop and took a sip from the coffee filled mug next to Lelal’s thigh. Nursing the cup between his hands he leaned back, elbows resting on the counter. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced.  
  
“Yes, well, you did that to yourself,” Lelal said with a snort. “I knew when I heard your message that you were completely plastered. But I came anyway. That’s on me I guess.”  
  
Jim only half-opened his eyes, still taking little nips from Lelal’s coffee. “Did we...do anything?”  
  
“Let’s see. You dropped me on the bed, took about two minutes to wrestle your own shirt off, ran to the bathroom, hurled your guts out. Insisted you were fine, started hurling again.” She took a bite out of her peeled apple and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “So I pushed you into the shower and got you in bed, where you knocked out immediately and snored so loud it felt like I was lying next to a sehlat.”  
  
“Sounds about right.” The entire room took a somersault. Jim knelt down, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. He felt Lelal’s cool hand on the crown of his head, her nails rubbing little circles through his hair.  
  
“Who were you out with anyway?” she asked.  
  
“No one.” Jim slowly lowered himself to the ground. His long legs crammed between the two countertops. “Just a friend.” He traced his hand down the side of his cheek, McCoy’s touch had lingered there, but most of the night remained a blur.  
  
“Just a friend huh,” Lelal repeated. She had finished the apple, core and all, and was licking her lips with loud smacks. “Don’t tell me you’re replacing me for a newer model.”  
  
“Wouldn’t dare,” he replied. Before Lelal could continue her line of questioning he rolled himself on his hands and knees. Bracing himself against the counter, and wincing every step of the way he raised himself back up. “I’m taking a shower.”  
  
Jim took the coldest shower he could manage and managed to haul himself into his uniform. To his relief Lelal had gone by the time he was back in the living room, undoubtedly bored by his hangover and reticence. It saved him from having to make true on his own promises from last night, which, well, from what he remembered they were as raunchy as they were ambitious.  
  
He was thirty. He threw his back out for goodness sake.

*

Back at his office, Jim was in for a treat.  
  
Scotty had sent him a huge report on the many 'mistakes' currently built into NCC-1701-A.  
  
If he'd be so kind to peruse and implement changes ASAP.  
  
Jim loved Scotty, he really did, but he had no intention of taking over Engineering while he was away. Besides, adding some upgrades didn't turn the whole thing into an Excelsior class ship, and for Scotty to even imply this was an affront.  
  
He said as much in a strongly worded comm message, signed 'your favorite handsome bastard'. But he forwarded the report to the ship's architect all the same.  
  
During his hand-to-hand class Jim decided it would be best for him to stand and watch. By then it was late afternoon and the rooms stopped spinning but he was erring on the side of caution.  
  
His TA took over the demo, and Jim focused on the adjustments in posture of his students. Nikola was young, not that tall and didn't look all that tough. This made him a formidable opponent for the broad-shouldered thick necked individuals that took this class. The brawn over brains types were quickly humbled when Nikola knocked them down to the ground. He had the skill, which was important, but what Jim liked even more was that Nikola was scrappy. Scrappy was a good trait to have.

  
“Good work, today Svoboda.” He patted Nikola on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. They were cleaning up, throwing the punching pads and gloves back into the sanitizer.  
  
Nikola’s attention stayed on his task, his hands quick as he paired the gloves together. “Thank you, sir.” His voice was small and he bit the side of his lower lip.  
  
Jim stopped, two dirty gloves still in his hands. "Something wrong?"   
  
Nikola shook his head, his jaw twisting as he kept chewing. "I had a quick question."  
  
Jim threw the remaining gloves down the chute and turned to Nikola. "Shoot."  
  
“I want to take the navigational training. On Rigelius.”  
  
Jim frowned. “That’s a refresher course for graduates. I can’t --”  
  
“I know,” Nikola said, and he looked very uncomfortable with his own interjection. “I just think that...I mean, " he paused for a second. “I haven’t been able to take the course last year. And I won’t be able to take it before graduating, they don’t offer it in Yorktown.”  
  
“Because we’re on the edge of uncharted territory. And we can’t just drop cadets off on non-Federation planets,” Jim explained. “Especially if they’re inexperienced.”  
  
"I have experience," Nikola defended, his arms crossed in indignation. "I'm from a luddite colony. I can do it."  
  
"Ok." Jim tilted his head, his eyes darting at Nikola's crossed arms. "Even if you can I don't see why you would need to."  
  
"It will look good on my command application sir."  
  
Nikola looked very serious to the edge of angry, but Jim understood the feeling a bit too much. He sighed. “I’ll...think about it. No promises though.”

*

At then end of the day Jim mustered up enough courage to try a bland plomeek soup in the officer’s mess. Which was the time when he finally felt like he was recovering from the abuse he suffered the night before. He’d checked Nikola’s records in his office, it was true he grew up in a luddite colony, no running water, no electricity.  
  
Still, experience or not, he needed a guarantee that the cadet would be safe...  
  
“You doin’ ok there, Jimmy?”  
  
Jim had been keeping his hand suspended in the air, hovering between his bowl and his lips. McCoy stood there with a food tray and a knowing grin on his face.  
  
“Very funny.” Jim gestured for McCoy to sit down but turned his nose up when a full plate of food turned up in front of him. “How can you eat like that.”  
  
“I can hold my liquor,” Bones explained with a shrug. “Better than most I see.”  
  
Jim made a complaining noise and tried not to breathe in too much through his nose, because the smell of actual food made his stomach turn. “Not doctoring today?”  
  
“Eloquent,” McCoy said. He stifled a yawn and stretched a little from side to side. “I had a shift this morning. And a meeting this afternoon.” He picked up his fork and stabbed at the pasta in front of him. “What did you do today.”  
  
Jim gave McCoy his gentlest smile. “I tried not to die.”  
  
McCoy smirked. “I could’ve --” He mimicked the stabbing motion of a hypo at his own neck.  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”  
  
Jim watched him for a moment. McCoy showed no signs of the bender that Jim was still recovering from.  
  
“You’re too sick to eat?” McCoy asked suddenly, and Jim realized that he’d been staring, his soup still mostly untouched. “Don’t let the fleet know their youngest captain can’t hold his own. They might fire you.”  
  
Jim quickly took a couple of bites from his soup. It was mostly cold, but would’ve tasted disappointing either way. “I’m thirty, Bones. Not that young anymore.”  
  
“Some of us are pushing forty,” McCoy replied with an exaggerated drawl. “So don’t get nasty with me.”   
  
Jim knew that it was best to keep eating his soup. Predominantly because he had a very different association with the word nasty. “Still determined to join me on Rigelius ?” he asked, changing the subject.  
  
McCoy’s easy expression turned into a frown. “You’re making light but once your eyeballs are bleeding from some unknown pathogen waltzing through your immune system, you’re going to be glad we came along,” he said with a haughty tone. “And just to give you a heads up, I’m rejecting three applicants from the program. Some of them seem to think you’re sending them to a sandpit in your mother’s backyard or something.”  
  
“That’s fair,” Jim replied, knowing an opportunity when he saw one. “You think there’s still time to get one last applicant through medical assessments?”  
  
“I don’t see why not,” McCoy said.  
  
“Because I’m thinking of taking cadet Svoboda along.”  
  
McCoy slapped his fork on the side of his tray. “Absolutely not,” he chided. “It’s a refresh-”  
  
“Refresher course, I know,” Jim finished. “I’ll give him an alternative assignment. Something more fitting to his experience. He’s very anxious to go.”  
  
“More like anxious to die,” McCoy muttered, but he picked up his fork again and continued eating.  
  
“Is this a maybe?” Jim asked carefully.  
  
“It’s less than a maybe, he has to pass physical assessment first and I want to talk to him.” McCoy replied with a frown. “Speaking of which, I still haven’t received your bill of good health and no, one conducted seven months ago doesn’t count. I won’t hesitate to cancel the whole thing unless I do.”  
  
Jim hadn’t considered that.


	4. Chapter 4

Jim entered his empty apartment, tired and grumpy. 

Before the door closed behind him he'd already kicked off his boots and thrown his shirt over the couch. A trail of clothes followed him from the door to the shower.

He’d passed through Dr. Piper’s physical assessment with ‘flying colors’. Dr. Piper hadn't attempted to hide his disappointment. A healthy captain was a good captain, but a captain who played hooky each time he needed a check-up deserved high blood pressure.

Dr. Mark Piper had an artful way of sneaking his psych evaluations in through his physicals. Nonchalant questions strewn around here and there as he looked at his charts. He could chat about the weather in one breath and ask you about your sick mother the next. It was an art form. Jim _hated_ it.

It was a small slip up because he hadn’t been sleeping well. A ‘no’ that should have been a ‘yes’, or some nondescript ‘maybe’ that Piper could get nothing from. Only he hadn’t lied, he’d answered honest and far too terse.

The shower head turned off, the daily waterration exceeded. Jim stayed put. Hair dripping water on his face.

Dr. Piper knew Pike better than Kirk did. Longer. They were friends before the Enterprise. That was his right, to be a friend. Jim never had an issue with that. 

What did annoy him was that Dr. Piper always seemed to be above it all. A professional who could turn off that magical switch to opt-out of his emotions. So instead of being a friend and telling Jim that Pike deserved better, that he owed it to him. He suggested an audio message and talking to a professional. 

They both knew the latter was never an option. 

By the time Jim finally decided to get dressed he was as good as dry. He threw on some sweatpants and checked the time. 21.07, he wasn’t hungry.

He moved over to his console and started reading through Scotty's report.

*

He was in his office before 0600, bone-tired but awake. Restless. His mind blank as he stared at the screen he’d been staring at for the last thirty minutes or so.

He opened another voice note and tried again.

“It’s been….three months and seven days since we landed in Yorktown. And I think most of us have been starting to feel at home. The base is beautiful, and it’s a privilege to look at a place so unique. I wish you’d be able to see it.” He paused. “Computer, erase last sentence from recording.”

_“Last sentence, erased.”_

“I wish I could describe it to you in a way that would honour its engineering wonder. It’s going to be another year at least, before our new ship is ready, and I can’t wait to enter my remaining years on this mission. Even though, before we got here I had my doubts on whether I wanted to stay captain at all. Computer, erase last sentence from recording.”

“ _Last sentence, erased.”_

“After all, being a captain is all I ever wanted to be. Spock is currently on New-Vulcan, with Lieutenant Uhura, on well earned shore leave. I think that he’s really grown as a person, and he would make you proud. I myself couldn’t think of a better first-officer to stand by my side. I’m sure you would agree. Computer, erase last sentence from recording.”

“ _Last sentence, erased._ ”

“As for myself, I try to keep busy and keep out of trouble. I think I’m succeeding but it’s hard for me to tell. As a captain it’s harder to find people around you who speak their opinion plainly. Not the way you used to do anyway.”

Jim leaned back in his chair, rocking it from side to side as he stared at his commscreen, eyes out of focus.

“I miss you.” He blinked, wiping away the tears that threatened to roll down his cheeks. “Computer, erase last sentence.”

“ _Last sentence, erased.”_

He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ll talk to you soon to keep you updated on the ship’s progress. Your friend, Jim. Computer, save message.”

_“Message saved.”_

Jim leaned forward and kept himself from repeating the audio message. He sent it instead and pushed his chair back. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, two seconds in and four seconds out.

*

Nikola was not at all comfortable with the fact that McCoy was observing one of their classes. Not even after Jim tried to reassure him that it wasn’t a big deal. 

McCoy entered the gymnasium thirty minutes before the end of class, sat on the side and watched. Still, Jim found him...distracting. And he had to willfully keep himself from glancing over every other second. So much for comfort.

McCoy's expression was hard to decipher. Jim knew he abhorred violence of any sort, he'd said as much. So the fact that Jim spent two hours teaching cadets how to knock someone out probably didn't impress him at all. But to Jim there was something very grounding about learning how to fight, and it had saved his life more than once. 

Jim whistled between his teeth. "Svoboda." He gestured to the center of the mat, and Nikola, who was adjusting a fellow cadet's posture, moved into position.

Of course the only one who was currently being judged was Nikola, and no doubt McCoy had shown up because he didn’t just want to talk to Nikola, he also wanted to size him up, perhaps even try to find a flaw or excuse to keep Jim from taking him on the training mission. 

Jim had overcome his initial doubt and was now more determined to bring Nikola along than ever. So much so that he spent the last ten minutes or so letting Nikola demonstrate all the different ways to disarm someone. Sure it didn’t have anything to do with navigating in wild unknown territory, but it showed that Nikola was knowledgeable and adept.

“You go ahead, I’ll clean up,” Jim said, patting Nikola on the shoulder before picking up the gloves and headed into the storage room. He took his time tossing them in the sanitizer and tried not to meddle. But with the sound of velcro being pulled apart there really weren't many words he could catch, and when the sanitizer started running he was kind of annoyed that he couldn’t even tell whether they were speaking anymore.

“You can come out of hiding now.” McCoy stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and his brow arched the way that made him look smug and very attractive. “The inquisition is over.”

“I wasn’t hiding, I was cleaning,” Jim replied innocently. “But just out of curiosity, what’d you think?”

“Well I hate to say it but I can’t think of a viable reason why he can’t go. Besides him not being eligible for the class and all. But that’s not on medical grounds in which case you clearly outrank me,” McCoy groused. “You had’m all showing off for me too. I’d feel bad to tell him no now.”

Jim laughed. “He wasn’t showing off. This is 'Advanced' hand-to-hand, Bones. Everything we do here is awesome.”

“Please.” McCoy rolled his eyes with a smirk. “I waived every single combat class I had, never regretted it one bit.”

“You’re kidding." It was the dumbest most dangerous thing he'd heard a senior officer say in ages. “Bones. I know that’s a core class.” Without thinking he stepped closer to McCoy who was still standing in the doorway. “What will you do when someone comes barging into a medbay.”

McCoy moved his fist in a stabbing motion, landing lightly on Jim’s neck then blew at the top of it like blowing the smoke from a gun barrel. “50cc right in the jugular. They’ll never know what hit them.”

Jim didn't think it was very funny. “Not everything we find out there goes down with a sedative, Bones,” Jim replied. “And even less of them have a jugular, believe me.”

McCoy shrugged, but Jim couldn't stop staring at the doctor who couldn't even fend for himself.

“Maybe so,” McCoy said gruffly. “But I’m a lover not a fighter, Jim.”

I bet you are, Jim thought. McCoy’s cologne smelled like sandalwood and something sweet like vanilla. He wanted to move in closer to make sure, just where his collar ended, where a thin chained pendant necklace shifted with each breath. It was a stamped piece with an hourglass with wings, it read carpe diem, ‘seize the day’.

“Jim?”

“Huh what?” Jim looked up.

“You ok?” McCoy asked, his brow was arched again but he was leaning over obviously concerned.

Jim recoiled a little, knew that the little space between them before was tempting enough. “I’m fine,” he said, taking a tentative step back.

McCoy’s eyes narrowed, he was sizing him up again and not in the good way. “I was asking if you’d had dinner yet,” he said, but he was looking Jim straight in his eyes, searching for something. “Do you lose your concentration often?”

Jim huffed, and took another step back. “Stop psychoanalyzing me, Bones. It’s annoying.”

McCoy rolled his eyes. “Have you had dinner yet?”

Jim paused and eyed McCoy suspiciously, not believing for a second that his prying would end with a simple complaint. “I haven’t.”

“Then let’s have dinner,” McCoy said.

*

“Jim, I still don’t understand why you’re so hellbent on letting him take the class in the first place.” McCoy’s voice was sharp and louder than needed be.

The Andorian food was Jim’s suggestion. A round revolving restaurant in sleek blue design. Tables so far apart it almost felt like they were alone. 

“I thought we talked about this,” Jim replied with an equally sharp tone. “Have we not already talked about this?” McCoy scowled at him and Jim sighed. “Because he's determined, he wants to take on a challenge and I like encouraging it.” He leaned over and picked up the large plate in the middle of their table. “Here have some tuber roots before you start stabbing _me_ with that fork of yours.”

McCoy took the plate from him and made a show of it to stab the roots a bit harder than he ought, which made Jim laugh. From the curve on McCoy’s lips he knew he was trying to keep from smiling.

“Ok, then answer another question,” McCoy said. “What is it that you’re actually supposed to _do_ during a refresher course on Survival Strategy?”

“I’d want to say survive,” Jim said, looking at the large bowl of ice in front of him. “But I’m afraid if I use that word you’re going to make them shut the whole program down.”

McCoy chuckled.


	5. Chapter 5

Jim didn’t remember the first time he met Dr. Mark Piper. 

He remembered the second time vividly. Starfleet Academy’s main building, officer’s lounge, Cobb salad, no dressing. He was sitting opposite Christopher Pike pretending not to listen while Jim argued the hell out of squeezing one year’s worth of curriculum in about six months. 

The way Mark Piper could eat a salad without concern while also blatantly and shamelessly listening in on their conversation had annoyed Jim to no end. Then, to his surprise, he was the one who gestured at Pike with half an egg attached to his fork that he should let Jim give it a shot. 

Pike told him to butt-out at the time, but Jim had no doubt that the OK he received on comm the next morning was at least partly due to Piper’s encouragement. 

Jim had grown to trust that judgement as well. Because Piper hardly ever had an opinion on anything, but when he did, it made sense to shut up and listen. 

The fact that Piper wanted a meeting as soon as possible suggested that it was serious, so Jim cleared his schedule and saw him first thing in the morning. 

He expected it to be important.

He didn’t expect a resignation.

“I,” Jim stuttered. “I hadn’t realized you were considering it.” 

“I hadn’t before Jim,” Piper explained. “But the Enterprise’s reconstruction has given me some time to reflect.” He took a sip from his herbal tea, and soundlessly placed it on the desk before continuing. “I’m not as young as I used to be and...I don’t like saying it about myself, believe me...I think the Enterprise’s CMO ought to be a bit bolder than I ever was. We’re talking frontier stuff here, Jim. You want someone who’s not afraid to take a little risk.” Piper looked a little tired in Jim’s eyes, a weariness that he only noticed just now. “Now I don’t think I’ve ever done you a disservice, and I’m proud of the work we’ve done. Wouldn’t trade it for anything else. But I think I came along as a bit of a reassuring factor, because I served with Pike. But you’re managing fine without me, Jim.”

Pike. 

Everything circled back to him lately, Jim couldn’t stand it. There was no way to brace against his name, nothing he could do to keep his heart from skipping a beat, or that sudden rush of adrenaline from rushing to his head. 

Besides, Pike never mentioned he wanted Piper as Jim’s CMO. When he gave Jim his ship he gave it to become the captain that Jim wanted to be. He didn’t demand he took a guardian along. It was Jim’s decision. 

A strategic one. 

His bridge crew was so young and inexperienced. Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, they were either cadets or barely graduated. He was the youngest captain in the history of Starfleet. He didn’t want to risk top brass mistaking his judgement for friendly favors. So he chose Mark Piper, because he had the years of service, the reputation, and yes, he knew Pike. And Pike would have no better role to play than to tell command that if anything went wrong, Jim’s attending physician would be the first to know and act accordingly. 

So much for that strategy. 

“How long do we have?” Jim asked. 

“As long as we need, Jim,” Piper replied reassuringly. “I don’t want it to be a rushed decision.” He took his PADD from his lab coat and handed it to Jim. “I already compiled a list of possible candidates. I haven’t informed them of my resignation, but it might give you an idea of what your options are. And once we’ve made our decision I’ll be helping your new CMO get settled in.” 

Jim traced his finger down the display as he scanned the short list of twenty-some doctors, his eyes immediately drawn to the only familiar name. 

_ Leonard Horatio McCoy. Born in Atlanta, Georgia. Earth. _

Without a second thought Jim opened the file, a list of credentials that mirrored his own rolled out. He read through it, and his jaw clenched. McCoy had said that Yorktown was as good a place as any. 

It was all a load of crap. 

McCoy hadn’t transferred to Yorktown just because he ‘could’. He transferred because they implored him to do so. They wanted him here, at the frontier, and looking at his file for good reason. 

“Do you recognize anyone from the list?” Piper asked, curious at Jim’s silence. 

“Yeah,” Jim replied, while he tried to hide his agitation. “I’ve been working with Dr. McCoy on the Survival Strategy course. Do you know him?” 

“I wouldn’t say know.” Piper scratched his chin. “I know  _ of _ him.” 

“How so?” 

“Well I know he was top of his class. He’s done some impressive research during his academy days...late enroller and--” 

“That’s all in his file, Mark.” Jim waved the PADD. 

“ _ And, _ ” Piper repeated, undeterred by Jim’s interruption. “I also happen to know that not a single one of his superior officers described him as anything but a fantastic surgeon, but a pain in the ass. In that particular order. No need to look at me like that Jim, it’s all in his file.” 

With arched brow Jim placed the PADD on the desk between them and began to read aloud. 

“Graduated summa cum laude...medal of valor blah blah blah.” 

“The letters of recommendation are at the bottom, Jim.” 

Jim kept scrolling. “Seven letters of recommendation.” He frowned. “Court martialed twice?” 

“But never convicted,” Piper said, scratching the back of his ear. “He got in a bit of trouble for using some unorthodox medical treatments when in a pinch. Nothing serious. We’ve all been court martialed once or twice, it makes for a good frontier doctor. Someone who likes to get the job done.” 

“Says here he got into a fight with a Capellan woman while she was in labour. After he got stranded on Capella IV due to some altercation with Klingons? That can’t be right.” 

Jim looked at Piper who gestured at the PADD again, his eyes twinkling. “Keep reading. I think she named the baby after him.”

“Leonard Horatio Akaar.” Jim shook his head. Who is this guy? “He got the planet to authorize a mining treaty...this is a weird story, Mark.” 

Piper laughed. “Wait till you’re older and listening to your  _ own _ captain’s logs, Jim. Space  _ is _ weird. Weird and dangerous.” 

Jim rolled his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t know him?” He pulled the PADD back on his lap, and opened the second letter. “You’re sounding just like him.” 

“Do I?” Piper asked with genuine surprise. “Must be a medical thing.” 

Jim was already distracted. “Mark listen, Dr. Philip Boyce’s letter. I quote: Dr. Leonard McCoy is one of the best surgeon’s I’ve ever worked with. He’s an ornery know-it-all but an excellent crewmember if you do not hold congeniality in high regard.” He grinned at Piper, and made a mental note of becoming more creative in his own personnel reports. He already had a couple of choice words ready for Spock’s next evaluation. 

The other letters in McCoy’s file didn’t differ much, though none of them were as distinct as Boyce’s. 

Feeling obligated Jim went through the other candidates on the list, Piper talking him through every candidate with the same conversational honesty Jim was used to from him. But he wasn’t really interested in that Vulcan lady who found a cure for the Danobian...Danubian? flu, or the eighteen year-old genius who graduated John Hopkins top of his class. 

* 

The remainder of Jim’s morning had been filled with boredom. Hours worth of reports that he’d been proverbially stacking up were now coming back to haunt him. Jim didn’t mind paperwork, but there was no amount of reading that could contend with the amount of reports coming his way now that the Enterprise was in construction. He loved her, he really did. But even he found there was a limit to his interest in simulations of reconfigurated inertial dampeners. 

Besides, he was distracted. Piper’s retirement hit him harder than he thought it would. He felt blindsided. It wasn’t strange that someone of Piper’s age would choose to relocate to a less unstable post. Why hadn’t he seen it? 

He went through every single candidate again. Knowing that he had time didn’t matter. He was trying to make a decision. Or, if he were completely honest, he had already decided. 

Using his clearance he requested every report he could find on McCoy, but the more he read, the more he realized he didn’t know  _ anything _ about him. 

The situation on Cappela IV for example, highly classified stuff and completely  _ unbelievable.  _

Four years ago Dr. Leonard McCoy happened to find himself in the middle of a military coup aided by Klingons on Capella IV.

Jim remembered Capella IV from his diplomacy courses at the academy. Their history was filled with bloodshed, but he had found something admirable about their sense of honesty and their pride. The Federation had yet to navigate themselves within their culture. For years they’d tried to get their High Teer, Akaar, to sign a mining accord. Only, the Capellans didn’t care about diplomacy. They cared about strength and courage. Were so obsessed with it they even deemed medicine pointless. Still, that’s what the Federation ended up sending: doctors. Medicine for Topaline. 

Nothing made it clear why it had to be McCoy. To Jim, McCoy was anything but conscientious so why would he be the right candidate for a diplomatic mission? Then again, what the hell did he know? Until a couple of hours ago he believed McCoy’s ‘simple country doctor’ shtick. 

Only three hours after landing in Capella IV, McCoy found himself without a security escort, who’d gotten himself killed due to ignorance and bad luck. And again, there was no sign of a request to return to the ship. Instead, McCoy agreed to stay the night, of all the stupid things to do. That night a Capellan by the name of Maab performed a coup, aided by the Klingons, and all communication with Starfleet was lost. 

The report included McCoy’s initial recording, his voice tired, maybe annoyed, while another Starfleet operative fed him questions. 

_ “It was -- mayhem out there, is what happened. Everywhere I looked those Capellans were at each other’s throat. Bearing knives, swords, but phasers too, and that was the work of those --- Klingons.”  _

The amount of redacted words showed he was definitely annoyed. 

_ “That wife of his, Eleen, was no damsel. I had to drag her out of her tent, she was going to stay and defend her unborn child. The idiot. Belly was as big as a melon, didn’t need to be a doctor to see that she was close. Fight? She could hardly bend over.”  _

He listened to McCoy’s voice as he read the transcript. 

They’d fled into the mountains with no food and hardly any water. They were barely out of harm’s way when the lady went into labor, which, according to McCoy, made her even less agreeable than before. 

_ “You’re -- right I slapped her in the face. That woman had gotten on my last nerve, and if I was going to save the both of them, and I had every intention to, I needed her full cooperation.”  _ McCoy scoffed.  _ “Goes to show what I knew about Capellan culture. She was sweet as sugar after that.”  _

It was such a fantastic story that what happened afterwards, their return and the subsequent crowning of the new High Teer, Leonard Horatio Akaar, seemed somewhat uneventful. But the fact remained that somewhere in the galaxy there was now a four-year old bearing McCoy’s name, governing a planet and finalizing a mining treaty years in the making. Jim may have had his own share of fantastical stories, but there were no babies with his name in this galaxy. He hoped. 

They wouldn’t be singing about his heroics from four years ago when he was stuck doing planet survey’s in the Alpha Quadrant. Getting some semblance of a reputation and lobbying fervently for a chance of going into deep space and exploring the galaxy for real this time. But before that...maybe.

The Battle for Earth was not  _ his _ story to tell. Maybe the Battle for Vulcan was. He’d been the first to know, he recognized it, he knew what to do. But Vulcan was gone. After everything he sacrificed he was still too slow. 

Sometimes, when he was lucky, it all felt like a lifetime ago. 

‘Infinite realities’ Chekov called it. That was just after he’d met the  _ other  _ Spock. Ever the optimist he found the thought of another Chekov, a  _ keptin _ Chekov, a cowboy Chekov or whatever was going on in that little mind of his, quite romantic. 

Jim saw it for what it was: same shit, different universe. 

Jim had only seen his counterpart in short flashes. He never asked why the other Spock tried so hard to conceal every aspect of that Kirk. If Jim were to take a gander: it probably wasn’t to keep him from seeing that Kirk lived ‘happily ever after’.

As for all the other infinite realities. What did it matter? It wasn’t like he was leaving this one anytime soon. And in this reality he was always coming up short. He could save Earth but not Vulcan, his crew but not his ship, and himself but never his captain. 

*

By the time Jim finally left his office it was late in the evening and Yorktown’s outer hull turned translucent, revealing a clear view of the stars around them. 

Jim yawned, stretching his arms up, groaning in relief when he felt his joints pop. He couldn’t believe that this was what being thirty was like. 

He was nearly at the nearest public transporter when he changed his mind. The air was starting to get cooler now, and the artificial cold felt more inviting than transporting home. 

Yorktown’s streets were hardly ever quiet, but the early evening had a calmness to it, and made you appreciate the station’s architecture for what it was. A masterpiece. Jim would never admit it out loud be he almost preferred it to the cold walls of the Enterprise.  _ Almost. _

He crossed a street, revelling in the odd feeling in his body as he switched gravitational fields, the walkway behind him now at a right angle. He was passing into one of Yorktown’s many parks.

That’s when he saw him. Who else could it be but McCoy?

He was standing by a pavilion rocking on the balls of his feet and staring in the distance. Looking for something, or someone. That someone undoubtedly wasn’t Jim but he waved anyway. 

“Waiting for someone?” Jim asked.

“Jim!” McCoy sounded more surprised than he ought to have been and smiled in a way Jim had never seen before. “I--” 

“Len,” McCoy had no chance to answer, he looked up at the sound of his name, his lips pressed together tightly. A man with black curls was jogging up to them, stopping short just inches from McCoy’s face, which made him lean back in surprise, and pressed a kiss on his lips. “Hi,” he said with a grin. 

“Hi,” McCoy replied, his expression something between a smile and a frown. 

“Sorry, I’m late.” The man turned his bag to his side, a black crossbody. “I was dealing with a bad case of helicopter parenting today. Some kids just aren’t allowed to have  _ any _ fun at all.” He looked up, a little further from McCoy who had taken a step back, when he finally noticed Jim. “Oh, I’m sorry, where are my manners.” Without missing a beat, the man held out his hand to Jim. “Luca Gallo.” 

Jim shook his hand. “Jim Kirk.” 

“The famous Jim Kirk of the starship Enterprise. I thought you looked familiar,” he said with an approving nod. “Hey, love your work. Appreciate you saving this” he twirled his finger above his head. “Old thing I happen to live on. The kids love you.” 

“Thanks?” Jim replied, suddenly feeling like he’d stepped on a Kendha-Ya sandworm. 

“Luca is a kindergarten teacher,” McCoy explained, his jaw still tight as he spoke. “He’s talking about the kids from his class.” 

“I see,” Jim said trying not to wince about the fact that Gallo was still staring at him. 

“Ever since they saw you floating around our ventilation vents they’ve all been crazy about space travel. But I just tell them about the cool stuff. Not the scary disease stuff Len’s so obsessed with.” He winked at McCoy who rolled his eyes. 

“Space is mostly cool stuff,” Jim added conversationally. There had to be a way for him to leave. An emergency only a captain could fix. “The dangers are vastly overrated.”

It was a bad joke, but Gallo’s laugh was loud and genuine. “I’m going to remember that.” Gallo wrapped his arm around McCoy’s shoulder. An innocent touch that made Jim  _ wish _ he’d stepped on a Kendha-Ya sandworm. He tried to look somewhere else, and settled on a mother and child skipping along the pavement. Their giggles juxtaposed against the silence that began to stretch between the three of them.

Thankfully, Gallo yawned, with the same excessive gestures he seemed to need for every human expression. “Excuse me.” He blinked a couple of times and gave McCoy a look that Jim didn’t have the energy to try to interpret. Then he turned to look at Jim. “So captain, care to join us for dinner?”

Unprepared, Jim opened and closed his mouth. Trying to pick an excuse and drawing an absolute blank. “I don’t want to impose.” Was the best he could come up with. 

“Nonsense!” Gallo waved his hand dismissively. “It will be my pleasure. It’s not every day  _ I _ get to eat dinner with a Starfleet captain. We’re going to the best restaurant on the station, I promise you won’t regret it.”

_ Crap.  _

*

The best restaurant on the station was actually a bistro called ‘L'oro Della Frontiera’ and was run by two sisters who, from Jim’s limited knowledge of Italians seemed to fit the stereotypical description to a tee. It was overcrowded and so tiny it fit no more than five tables with a narrow walkway in between. 

Jim was sitting in the walkway, pressed against their table as McCoy and Gallo squeezed together on the booth opposite him. 

Gallo ordered for the three of them, in  _ Italian _ \-- because of course -- uncorked a bottle of red wine, and apparently said something both hilarious and charming to one of the owners as she quickly returned with complimentary fried stuffed olives for the table. 

“Cheers,” Gallo said. They clinked their glasses together and Jim immediately took a big sip of wine to ease himself into his predicament. Bitterly admitting to himself that the wine was good. 

Gallo pushed the olives his way. “You have to taste them. They grow everything in a greenhouse above the restaurant. Nothing is synthesized.” He wrinkled his nose as he said it. 

Jim managed a wry smile. Of course Gallo would be the type to turn his nose up at non-grown food. 

Back on the Enterprise one of Scotty’s greatest accomplishments was to get the food synthesizer to make mashed potatoes that didn’t look and taste like phlegm. It was still gooey, yes, but it vaguely reminded the crew of potatoes. 

To his own horror he now found he preferred the synthesized version to the real thing. 

By the second glass of wine Jim resigned to his fate. The food was delicious, and Gallo was making enough conversation for the three of them combined. He was gesticulating, his hands flying across the table as he recounted in many words how he and McCoy met. 

A question Jim decidedly hadn’t asked and really had no interest in knowing, but he was already eyeing his third glass so it was fine. 

“We had the entire place decorated, everything in rainbow colors.  _ Green, yellow, purple,  _ you know? But there were so many kids, and they all have these allergies. I mean, the parents are always saying, my kids can’t have sugar, mine can’t have dairy etcetera etcetera. So I had this idea that we would turn off the food synthesizers on the entire floor.” He paused to take another sip of wine. Jim thought to suggest he also take a deep breath. “Of course I didn’t know that it would also turn it off in the staff rooms.” 

“And like I told you that day you could’ve made an educated guess,” McCoy said, channeling his initial annoyance. “That thing works on a single power grid.” He looked at Jim, shaking his head. Jim took another sip of wine. 

“I’m a teacher, not an engineer. Anyway, suddenly he comes storming out of the staff room, looking like bloody murder. Scaring the children I might add.” 

McCoy looked at Jim again, this time shaking his head in denial. 

“So, I gave him my most sincere apology. And I promised to buy him  _ any _ coffee he wanted, that I would even buy him dinner, after the fundraiser was over.” 

“Romantic.” Jim forced himself to say, appraising Gallo differently with a quick glance. He was a slick bastard, he had to give him that. 

As the next course was laid out at their table, and the second bottle of red was ceremoniously uncorked, their conversation shifted. Gallo knew next to nothing about Starfleet, and Jim was more than happy to expound on intergalactic space travel. Encouraged by Gallo’s childlike enthusiasm as he described the day-to-day operations on the Enterprise. Gallo was almost leaning over the table, his wine glass full and untouched in his hand. 

“It sounds so--” he gestured with his hands, his preferred method of communication. Then another thought entered his mind and he took a sip of wine and shook his head. “I’m still waiting for that day when they’ll allow civilians on a ship like that.”

“Let’s hope it never comes to that.” McCoy had been quiet for a while and Gallo turned towards him, the space on the booth barely accommodating him twisting. 

“Not on the at-risk vessels, just the exploration types. I mean, those are pretty safe. Right, Jim?” 

“I...yes,” Jim replied, already sifting through his mind. “Starfleet has a 0,29% Fatal Accident Rate at non-ship related stations,” he cited from memory. “It’s 0,89% for starships, outliers excluded.”

“Outliers?” Gallo asked.

It was McCoy who replied. “Outliers are the anomalies, the statistics when shit really hits the fan.” His expression had turned solemn, and the comfort Jim had just begun to settle into was suddenly gone. “They must’ve lost about a dozen ships during the battle for Vulcan, right?” 

“Eight ships,” Jim replied, his mouth dry as bone. 

“Eight ships,” McCoy repeated, looking at Gallo. “That’s an outlier.” 

It was the second uncomfortable silence to stretch between them, only this time Gallo also noticed the change in the atmosphere, and knew the reason behind it. Jim’s silence wasn’t that of speechlessness. On the contrary, his mind was racing, his dry mouth itching to talk. There had never been an official FAR-report on the battle for Vulcan, but it was a calculation that had been running in his head for years. Only, it was not his to share for shock value. 

“My crew and I. We know the risk of being out there every day. It’s beautiful and yeah, most of the time it’s fucking awesome. And the days when it’s not... ” Jim paused while he tried to find the right words. “You haven’t been out there. Not really. To witness the birth of a star, spanning across light years and millions of years in the making to form right before your eyes. To wake up every day not knowing what it will bring, and to keep that same sense of wonder that you had when you were still a child. To me that’s worth all the danger in the world.” He looked at McCoy, waiting for a response, but added his final thought when he was met with silence. “I think the alternative is far more ominous than that.” 

“What would the alternative be?” 

“The waiting place,” Jim replied. He expected McCoy’s confused expression, but Gallo remained impassive. 

“The waiting place?” 

“It’s from a children’s book I think...twenty-first century?” Gallo explained to McCoy. 

“Twentieth,” Jim corrected.

“Right.” Gallo snapped his fingers. “They used to give it to children when they graduated, high school or college or something.” He waved his hand dismissively when he saw McCoy’s frown deepen. “Darn it, what was it called? ‘Oh, Look at You Go’?” 

Jim blinked very slowly. “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.” 

“Right!” Gallo snapped his fingers again. “Now that I think of it, maybe we have a copy at the school database. I’ll look it up.”

Jim didn’t know why he suddenly felt so defensive while he wasn’t being attacked nor ridiculed. Perhaps it was the ship, perhaps it was Mark’s retirement or the fact that he was stuck in a place where he didn’t want to be. There were many other things he wanted to say. About the Enterprise, about Starfleet, even about the Narada. But in those moments, where his mind moved faster than his mouth could keep up with, he knew it was better to say nothing at all. 

“Excuse me,” he stood up, sidling sideways as he made his way to the bathroom. 

To his relief it was the only space in the restaurant that wasn’t crowded. He locked the door of the single stall, rolled up his sleeves and held his hands under the tab to splash his face with water. He stood there for a while, his head bowed because he didn’t need to see whether he looked as tired as he felt. 

Jim needed all the energy he could muster to dry his face and unlock the door. He was about to return to the table when he paused. 

There they were on their far too tiny loveseat, McCoy quickly placing his glass on the table before bursting in the kind of laughter he hadn’t ever seen him do. Eyes shining with tears as he leaned over Gallo’s shoulder, who continued his story with his characteristic gesturing. It was the final straw Jim needed. 

Making a decision he walked up to their little table, pressing his legs all the way up to the edge so that people could still pass. 

“You’ll have to excuse me, I just got an urgent call I have to take,” he lied easily. Gallo opened his mouth to say something, but he talked over the murmurs of polite disappointment with a smile. “But thank you for the dinner. You were right, the best restaurant in Yorktown.” 

He gave McCoy a quick nod, but forced himself to turn around right after and make his way to the door. 

The evening was still cool and inviting, but he found the nearest portable transported and transported himself straight home. 

His apartment was a welcome sight of silence and solitude. He made a quick turn into his kitchen to pour himself a drink, any drink that wasn’t wine, before sitting down on his couch. 

He didn’t know why he felt so lousy. Well, he did know, it was just a hard pill to swallow wasn’t it?

The fact that he felt betrayed by Leonard ‘Yorktown is as good a place as any and I’m a liar’ McCoy and  _ stinkingly _ jealous of Luca ‘I speak Italian and shit rainbows for a living’ Gallo said more about him than them.

He slid down his couch, tired and dejected, and downed his Saurian brandy in one go, coughing as it burned down his throat. 

This reality sucked.


	6. Chapter 6

The week went on while Yorktown’s temperature continued to drop. The trees, once a lush green, were now slowly turning red and preparing to strip themselves of the passing year. Yorktown’s overhead irrigation system had tripled in frequency. It was just like regular rain, really, only scheduled and district-dependent. The life’s work of an overly romantic architect/engineer who thought an underground irrigation system just wouldn’t cut it. Jim could not agree more. Artificial autumn wouldn’t be complete without the occasional downpour.

It had been raining in his district for about two hours now, and the sight from his bedroom invited contemplation. If he propped his pillow up just right, he could peer over the edge and watch the raindrops patter on the pavement a couple of stories down. He watched two children stomping from puddle to puddle, their boots, one wearing a red pair and the other a yellow pair, bright even from a distance. They ran off eventually, closely followed by a fussing parent, and he sat up a little higher in bed to follow their progress further when his comm rang.

Years of early comm messages had trained him to roll out of bed immediately, awake and alert, and into command mode. He walked over to his office, a room connected to both his living and bedroom and assigned to all commanding officers in Starfleet residential homes. It was small and Jim hadn't bothered to give it a personal touch, knowing full well that if he did, his stay in Yorktown would feel all the more permanent. It could have been any captain's office now, with the Federation flag hanging on the wall behind him, within the console's view-screen of course. The scale model of Yorktown on his desk was a nice touch though, and he had every intention of making of formal request of taking it with him when he'd leave.

He walked over to his console and pulled on the shirt hanging from his desk chair for occasions like these. Smoothing down his hair as much as he could he flopped into his seat and leaned over to answer the call, but when the caller ID caught his eye he hesitated.

_ 'Kirk, Winona' _

He narrowed his eyes at the sight of his mother's name blinking in front of him, and automatically recalled the last time they spoke. That had been on his birthday, mere days after saying goodbye to his beloved Enterprise. It was the only Kirk tradition they held up, calling at the anniversary of his father's death, his birth an afterthought to both of them. Jim remembered how he'd spent that day, watching the new Enterprise from an empty shipyard observatory and not being able to wrap his mind around the concept of time – eighteen months felt like a lifetime when it came to his ship. Whereas Winona's words rang familiar as if it'd been yesterday.

He sat back, pulling the hem of his shirt further down to straighten the creases. He tapped his fingers on his thighs, and cleared his throat. Then, he answered.

Winona always looked so young to Jim. Unchanging in his eyes, where his oldest memories of her never made way for the new. There was no space for an aging Winona in Jim's mind, even when the subtle signs of the years began to show on her face.

“Jim.” Winona smiled at him, thin lines forming at the corners of her eyes.

“Hey.” Jim tried hard to emulate her expression. “Mom.”

Winona’s smile deepened, her eyes searching Jim’s face, and his surroundings with familiar quickness. “Did I wake you?” she asked, glancing at Jim’s still disheveled hair.

“No. No, I was awake.” Jim self-consciously smoothed his hair down further, combing his fingers through. A welcome distraction as the silences that often punctuated their conversation were long and charged.

Winona and he had long decided not to talk about important matters if they could help it, and the distance between them had only increased with each passing year. The last time they had shared a home together had been more than twenty years ago, the result of the crowning achievement of Jim's childhood, when he took his uncle's old Corvette and drove it off a cliff. Forcing Winona to take the first shuttle back to Earth before her next mission to pick him up from juvie. Jim remembered how proud he felt when she sat next to him, filling out the paperwork for his release, everything going exactly as he'd planned. But when they drove home Winona did none of the things he thought she'd do. She wasn't angry, she didn't threaten to ground him for a year, nor did she vow to quit the fleet to make his life miserable for the next decade. She simply signed the papers, drove them home, and never brought it up again. It had set a precedent they still adhered to today, but Jim had long stopped resenting.

“How are things in Yorktown?” Winona asked, her tone deliberately light. “How is the  _ Enterprise _ ?”

“Yorktown is fine,” Jim replied. “The  _ Enterprise _ is still on schedule. Should be ready in a few months.” Twelve months to be exact, but Jim didn't want to bother with the semantics.

“Glad to hear it.”

Another silence followed, and Jim took the time to really look at her. He had been wrong. She did look older now.

“Did you call for a reason?” Jim’s goal had been to maintain his nonchalance and to keep their conversation friendly. But he hadn’t been able to completely hide the vitriol hidden somewhere in there.

Winona pretended not to notice. It was easier that way. “Not really no,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “It’s just that the  _ USS Indus _ is heading over to Yaros III for maintenance. It’s only a day’s shuttle ride from there to Yorktown and I thought, if you had the time…”

“Mom.” Jim sighed. “I’m... pretty busy. What with teaching and overseeing the Enterprise's reconstruction...I don’t know. Maybe.”

Winona’s smile turned wry and sad but she nodded her head. “I understand.” She paused. “Just, let me know if you find some free time. And I’ll be there. OK?”

Jim nodded and ended the call, falling back into his chair with a frustrated groan that seemed to come all the way from his toes. Swiveling from side to side, he tried to imagine what it would be like to have Winona pay a visit. But none of the scenarios that came to mind felt particularly happy to him.

*

Jim boarded the  _ USS Anansi _ that afternoon, followed by his skeleton crew and the dozen Survival Strategies course participants.

It took less than an hour to forget about the enticements of a starbase like Yorktown, when he was once again surrounded by the steady humming of the  _ Anansi’s _ warp drive, and the delightful sight of stars gliding by from his navigator’s chair.

This felt like home again, a feeling consolidated even more by the presence of his helmsman.

Sulu’s offer to pilot the  _ Anansi _ to Rigelius VII had come as a surprise. It had been a formal request on Hikaru’s part, a runabout trip, a week off-starbase. But the entire mission had been so completely ordinary that he’d expected a number of ensigns to vie for the job. Not the helmsman of the flagship. He hadn’t spoken to Sulu, or anyone else from the crew apart from the occasional update on the  _ Enterprise _ . Up to this point, all the contacts with his crew had been completely one-sided. There had been numerous comm messages, of course, from people wanting to stay in touch. And Sulu and Ben had invited him to dinner on a number of occasions in the past few months. But up until now Jim had successfully managed to distance himself from that scene of domesticity. He much preferred catching up on the  _ Anansi _ than in a Starfleet assigned family living room.

All was well on the bridge though, and Sulu, who was in a chipper mood from the second he sat down at the helm, was a welcome distraction from Jim’s thoughts.

Sulu had spent the last few months with his husband and daughter, who had moved out to Yorktown for a brief rendezvous before the events of Altamid. For Sulu, the destruction of the  _ Enterprise _ may have been a blessing in disguise. The construction schedule for the new  _ Enterprise _ gave them more months together than Sulu could’ve hoped for during their five-year mission. A respite from having to reunite anew each time they found themselves close enough in charted space to warrant a visit.

Jim listened to Sulu’s vivid explanation of his family life, interjecting a comment here and there to assure him that it wasn’t boring to listen to. And it wasn’t boring. Foreign, maybe, but not boring. Jim had never really experienced traditional family dynamics. Not that Ben and Sulu’s were anything close to traditional. They still did their best, though, and at least one of them was there during the recitals, or the sporting events, teaching their daughter how to tie shoelaces, and how to count to ten without skipping numbers.

Perhaps Sulu, like Piper, would realize what he was missing before the  _ Enterprise’s _ mission was done. Jim wouldn’t blame him for prioritizing family over adventure. Jim was the end-result of parents who hadn't made that sacrifice. Some would call Winona’s ‘hands-off’ parenting style mediocre, at best, but that would imply that there was something to assess in the first place. Sulu on the other hand seemed to revel at the opportunity to spend time with his daughter, his eyes gleaming with love with every word he spoke about her.

But in-between the tales, Sulu also gazed at the same stars he did, white lines on a canvas of pure black, and Jim recognized that look of love and awe, too. Sulu’s mouth twitched, his fingers gliding over the console as he adjusted their speed. He looked over to where Jim sat.

Jim knew he must've been wearing a similar expression, because Sulu laughed and shook his head.

“I don’t even know, Jim.” He set the ship to auto-pilot and leaned back in his chair. “Ben calls it ‘space-ache’,” he began, bracketing the last words with his fingers. “And warned that if I didn’t haul my ass back on a ship within the week, he would personally jettison me off Yorktown.”

“I didn’t know there was a word for it,” Jim said. “Were you really that miserable?”

Sulu arched his brow. “Are you kidding me, sir? One more week and I would’ve jettisoned myself.”

Jim smiled at him, shedding his worries. Perhaps some of his issues weren’t his alone.

*

As for the ones that were...

Yes, McCoy was on the ship, and his presence didn’t feel anything like Sulu’s.

Their interactions had been all business. McCoy had introduced Jim to the two nurses accompanying them for the mission. Nurse Lang, whose height and build, if he’d been wearing red instead of blue, would have made him a dead-ringer for a security officer, or alternatively an Olympic weightlifter, and an Andorian Thaan named Th'avihlok, who looked like he hadn’t smiled since, well, ever. It was no wonder McCoy had never seen the need to learn how to defend himself. Who needed basic self-defense training when your nurses could send someone flying to the other side of the room without batting an eye?

If that disaster of a dinner had never happened, he would’ve joked about it with McCoy. Now he just nodded and sent them on their way to the  _ Anansi’s _ modest but well equipped medical bay with a captainly “dismissed”.

The dinner with McCoy and his boyfriend a week ago had been somewhat of a rude awakening. Deliberate or not, it made it clear that McCoy and he weren’t friends who could joke around during work-hours. They were colleagues first and acquaintances at best. 

If Jim was obsessed – and he knew he had a propensity for being overly thorough – it was only because the circumstances forced him to be. He’d read every Starfleet file about McCoy that existed, and somehow he’d still managed to get blindsided by yet another piece of information about the doctor. And how was that possible for someone like him? He had a reputation in the fleet as being someone who always managed to think three steps ahead.

In any case, McCoy owed nothing to Jim, least of all an insight into his personal life. Besides, the idea of Luca being some kind of secret was ridiculous. McCoy’s reticence about his existing relationships was most likely born from honoring Jim’s own boundaries. He was the one who had made it clear he didn’t want to be psychoanalyzed. He had gone out of his way to shield himself from any type of personal conversation, even in its most generic form.

*

The  _ Anansi _ gave Jim part of the familiar calm he craved so much. But the calm was short-lived. By the end of the day, the ship came to a halt, just on the edge of Rigelius VII’s gravitational field. The ship became quieter after arrival, the survival course students using the time to rest up before their training mission began, while the small number of crew members, if not on duty, retired to their own chambers until their next shift.

Jim went to bed early out of boredom, hoping that the change of scenery would lull him into a deep slumber that would last until alpha shift. But after hours of tossing and turning, he accepted the fact that it wasn’t the bed, or the pillow, or the covers that was keeping him awake. The  _ Anansi _ was not the  _ Enterprise _ , no matter how much he had hoped she was.

As a young man with an outsized chip on his shoulder, going nowhere fast in Riverside, he’d driven for hours, thinking about a different future. His travels had taken him to the shipyard. The sight of that behemoth of a ship under construction had kept him riveted for a long time, her white elegance calling to him. His face, bruised black and blue from the bar fight, had throbbed in the cold, his mind still reeling from Pike’s taunting offer. Even with just a partial hull, and stranded above a barren field, the  _ Enterprise _ was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It would be years until her completion, but Jim knew potential when he saw it and, like stars, he often longed for things just out of his reach.

Pike used to joke about that all the time. Gray eyes dancing, his mouth cocked into a half-smile, he’d never really bothered to hide his teasing accusation that Jim had been after his ship all along, focused on taking what Pike had for his own. That Pike’s recruitment speech hadn’t meant a damn thing to Jim, and that is was only the lure of captaining a ship, of captaining the flagship, that had enticed Jim into joining Starfleet. It had seemed an unlikely prospect at the time, sitting alone with Pike in a dingy bar, battered and aching. But, as always, there had been a core of truth in Pike’s quips. Starfleet ideals be damned, as a cadet Jim did prefer the thought of command in deep space over the notion of diplomacy, prime directives and supply runs. But as he grew older and wiser, the joke had aged along with him and stopped being funny.

Rising, Jim pulled his uniform on, not even bothering to turn on the lights. He could get ready in his sleep, and had done so many times in the past. Using the terminal in his room, he looked for the nearest observation deck from his quarters, but settled on a tiny officers mess when he realized that a ship this size would not – of course – have one.

He walked his way to the mess quietly, as if his footfalls would disturb someone. His boots whispered with every step, the back of the leather fabric rustling against his calves. As he walked, he felt some of that anxious energy he could never entirely contain leaving him, if only for a little while. He traced his fingers over the  _ Anansi' s _ interior hull, the feel of the smooth surface another way to ground himself. In his mind, he tried to remember the number of steps it took from his quarters to the first observatory deck on the  _ Enterprise _ . He’d never counted but he now wondered why he never had.

Spock would know.

He missed Spock.

The mess hall was dim and quiet, but it contained a small window, the  _ Anansi’s  _ compensation for the lack of an observation deck, and he was instantly drawn to it. The bright reflection from Rigelius VII' s surface made his eyes water. A red-hued planet with streams of clouds girdling it’s middle. Behind it, two moons, one a garish yellow hue, the other a muted grey, very similar to Earth’s much loved natural satellite.

“Can’t sleep?”

Startled, Jim turned away from the window. Over these past weeks on Yorktown, he had grown accustomed to McCoy’s dark voice, its faint remnants of a lazy, southern birth-tongue, but he hadn’t expected it to hear it here, in the dark of the deserted officers’ mess.

The good doctor was sitting at one of the tables closest to the window, the contrasting light of the brightly lit window concealing him in shadows.

Jim walked over to the table, studying him closely. McCoy looked tired, a figure drawn in shades of grey and charcoal. Jim had the fanciful thought that the stubble growing on his jaw, the dark sweep of his hair, were formed from the shadows themselves. But there was nothing dim about his gaze. His eyes were bright as they watched Jim approach. The closer he got, the more real McCoy seemed to become, until he coalesced, like a lens being focused, into the same person Jim knew on Yorktown. Perhaps, it had only been his imagination, and McCoy was the same as he had always been, even here on the  _ Anansi _ .

Jim took the seat that McCoy kicked out from under the table for him. “Something like that. You?”

McCoy shrugged. “Never sleep the first night,” he said matter-of-factly. He swirled the liquid in his glass, which Jim was only now noticing. He looked up and smiled, almost apologetic in his confession. “I figured you’d be sleeping like a baby by now. Being on a starship and all.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair with his eyes closed. “The sound of a humming warp core and the constant threat of the vacuum of space outside.” He opened his eyes and looked at Jim. “Just the way you like it.”

Jim laughed and shook his head. “Here’s hoping I don’t actually sound like that.”

“It's an artistic interpretation,” McCoy replied, eyes shining with suppressed amusement.

“I can see you’re taking creative liberties.”

McCoy raised his hand in surrender. “Everyone’s a critic,” he conceded, then leaned forward, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. “So, why can’t you sleep then?”

“Why can’t you?” Jim's reply was a knee-jerk reaction, and he immediately looked at McCoy to gauge his reaction. McCoy didn’t even flinch. Instead, he gave Jim a funny look, something that was a cross between amusement and confusion.

“You deflect a lot when you talk, you know that?” He’d said it in quiet wonder, as if it were more like an observation meant for himself than for Jim. “If you must know, I don’t sleep well the first night because I need about twenty-four hours to get used to the idea that a thin piece of hull separates me and imminent death. When  _ you _ look outside you see stars…” McCoy glanced over his shoulder at the red planet again, his voice turning flat as he spoke. “To me they’re all potential supernova’s.” Then he rolled his shoulders back, like he was shaking off the very thought haunting him, and smiled. “Now I’m going out on a limb here and guessing your insomnia isn’t supernova related.”

Jim smiled. “It’s not even supernova adjacent.” He looked at McCoy, but found no laughter there. As he suspected, McCoy’s light tone was nothing more than a ruse. “You really want to know, don’t you?”

“Dying.” McCoy knocked on the table which was clearly synthetic. “To know.” He took a pull of his drink. Bourbon, Jim could see, now that his eyes had adjusted. Jim carefully scrutinized McCoy’s face, caution, as always, making him hesitant. Because McCoy was offering him a choice wasn’t he? And he’d had enough days of ennui and loneliness to really have to think about his answer. As unnatural as it felt to share.

“I feel...” he paused, trying to find the right words, the ones he hadn’t even discovered for himself yet. “Restless.” In the end, the word was wrong but it was close enough. He looked down at the table between them, his thumb scratching over the rough surface where the shiny resin had been broken by wear and tear.

“Restless.” McCoy repeated. “Why?”

Jim shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

He sat up straight and looked at McCoy who was watching him with an arched brow and an expression Jim could only interpret as suspicious. Like there was something more important, more truthful, that Jim wasn’t sharing, only for the life of him, Jim couldn’t think what that would be.

“Besides, you’re the doctor,” Jim said with a pang of annoyance. “Why don’t you tell me what  _ you _ think?”

McCoy blinked. “I’m a surgeon, Jim, not a therapist,” he replied, apparently unimpressed by Jim’s aggrieved tone, and pressed on with the same even tone. “So, you’re ‘restless’. All the time or just at night?”

Jim shook his head, wanting to bite his tongue before he let something more revealing slip. ‘Not a therapist, my ass’ he thought, as he watched McCoy recline in his chair, drink still in hand, and one of his feet propped up on the seat next to him. He took a sip from his drink, which Jim by now figured must be synthahol, and moved the fingers of his free hand in a hypnotic progression, thumb to each of his fingers in turn, one at a time. It was a surgeon’s exercise, one he’d seen Piper do on numerous occasions in the officer’s mess. The exercise had been Piper’s tell during their many poker games. The CMO had unconsciously pressed down on his nails too hard whenever he had a bad hand. But McCoy’s movements were more fluid than Piper’s, and given what he knew of the man, Jim doubted whether he had a tell at all. “Care to share your thoughts, doctor?”

McCoy looked up, as if he’d been disturbed from a daydream. “I was thinking about the first time we met.”

Jim arched his brow. “The meeting with Commodore Paris?”

McCoy snorted. “No. When you threw your back out in the middle of the night,” he clarified. He looked at Jim appraisingly. “You never did tell me how that happened. Although I’ve got a pretty good guess.”

“Hmm…” Jim hummed, by now far too familiar with McCoy to risk underestimating his observational skills. “Fun and games gone awry,” he admitted drily, keenly watching McCoy for his reaction. “She was heavier than I thought.”

There was no judgment to be discerned, not even a little. Even as Jim searched McCoy’s expression for it. Not that there was a reason he had to defend himself to someone like McCoy. The man was in a committed relationship, while he decidedly wasn’t. A part of him hoped McCoy would ask a follow up question, just so they could establish how far apart their lives really were, and he could stop hoping for more.

McCoy stood up from his chair, and placed his now empty glass in the middle of the table. He made his way to the food synthesizer and returned with two tumblers of amber liquid.

“And what is it that we’re drinking?” Jim asked, picking up the glass McCoy slid his way and looking it over as he swirled it from side to side.

“Whiskey flavored water,” McCoy answered, not bothering to hide the scorn in his tone. “Gotta love a starship.” Using his foot, he slid his chair to the other side of the table, inches from Jim’s seat, so that he had an unobstructed view of Rigelius VII, instead of sitting with his back towards the window.

They were sitting almost shoulder to shoulder now, facing the red giant in front of them. The surface was shrouded now with red clouds, a huge storm brewing.

“It genuinely looks like hell,” McCoy said with both awe and disapproval. “Like the sky’s on fire.”

Jim said nothing. The planet’s atmosphere did look like it was on fire. They sat in silence for a while, drinking and watching the planet turn in front of them, revealing every inch of itself as the night pressed on. And when their glasses emptied, Jim stood up to make them another drink. Standing by the synthesizer, he hesitated before settling on a Vulcan spice tea.

McCoy wrinkled his nose when Jim held it up in front of him. “It’ll make you sleep better than fake booze will,” Jim urged, before sitting back down.

McCoy looked unconvinced, but took a cautious sip of the steaming liquid anyway. He seemed to tolerate the taste well enough, and he cradled the cup close to his chest. “Luca swears by this stuff,” he admitted in a low voice, slowly growing more languid with fatigue.

It was the first time McCoy had voluntarily mentioned Luca, and Jim tried to imagine McCoy’s expression as Luca, with his unbridled enthusiasm, tried to sell him on a Vulcan beverage. “How long have you and Luca been together?” he asked.

McCoy smiled, not at Jim, who was now watching him with interest. But to himself more likely, due to happy memories. He sat up and placed his cup on the table before answering. “Fourteen months as of five days ago,” he replied. “We celebrated with cake.”

Jim shifted and placed his own cup next to McCoy’s. “He seems like a nice guy.”

McCoy nodded. “He is, yeah,” he agreed genially. “Most of the time. I mean, he tries, but it doesn’t always work out that way.” Jim looked at him in confusion and McCoy added on a more serious note. “He wasn’t exactly being his most considerate self when you met him.”

It was an insightful comment, one that Jim ought to have been prepared for when it came to McCoy, but it still caught him off guard enough to keep him from opening his mouth and saying something inane. As he mentally stumbled over his first thoughts of denial, McCoy continued. “You were obviously preoccupied when he invited you, Jim. And to a place he likes to go because it gives him a break from having to speak Standard all the time.” He rolled his eyes at that, leaning forward to pick up his cup of tea again, but he kept it in front of him, not drinking, both hands clasped around it. Perhaps for comfort. He looked up at Jim, eyes rueful and voice apologetic. “The thing is, I didn’t want to rescind the invitation because I was afraid you’d get the feeling you weren’t welcome.”

Jim swallowed, painfully aware of the fact that his state of mind that night at the restaurant had not gone unnoticed by McCoy, and feeling the worse for it. “I just didn’t want to intrude,” he replied, settling on a half-lie. “That’s all.”

McCoy just looked at him, the reflection of the planet’s red light now muted by the grey moon that was passing beneath them. McCoy looked handsome in the softer light, and Jim was once again reminded just how close they were sitting. “You weren’t,” McCoy replied firmly, though it was unclear which part of Jim’s statement he was denying. Then he turned his head into his shoulder and yawned.

“Calling it a night?” Jim asked, and he reached to take the teetering cup from McCoy’s hand, before it slipped from his grasp. McCoy released his grip one finger at a time and rubbed his face with both hands.

“Might as well.” He stood up and pushed the chair back under the table with his knee. “You?”

“In a minute,” Jim replied, lifting his still half-full cup. He waved at McCoy and watched him as he left the officer's mess. Then stood up and walked up to the observation window, to watch the red planet, and wait for the arrival of Alpha shift. 


	7. Chapter 7

Training missions weren’t something Jim took lightly.

The name was dangerously deceptive. _Training_. It implied a controlled process, where nothing could go wrong, or if it did, someone or something would always be in place to fix it. But these weren’t simulations -- practiced in the safe environment of a Starfleet Academy classroom -- where it was impossible to injure anything other than your ego or, in Jim’s case, your reputation.

The only similarity between a simulation and a training mission was that you’d be evaluated afterwards, whereas the only difference between a training mission and a real one was that during a training mission you were at least dressed for the occasion.

Which is why Jim reiterated the mission’s hazards in addition to its objectives for the umpteenth time to the sixteen Starfleet officers awaiting departure to Rigelius VII, ignoring the glazed expressions in the eyes of the most experienced participants. The objective was simple after all: six days, six locations. All they needed to do was follow their designated route, finding suitable places to shelter along the way.

He wasn’t worried about the old hands -- they knew their skills and their limits even when their bodies were under a considerable amount of stress. It was the other half of the group, the ones who’d never spent a week in a hostile environment rife with unexpected perils, that Jim was focusing on.

Rigelius VII was an M-class planet, and the air they were breathing, though thin, was not unlike that on Earth. But it was still a desert, hot during the day and cold during the night. The planet’s geomagnetic field was so erratic, a simple man-made compass was useless and they were forced to rely on star charts to navigate. Most importantly, this was going to be a solo mission and, like all solo-missions, it all came down to character.

How would they react when they got caught in one of the planet’s many red sandstorms, lost and alone? Would they panic? Run for cover? Or would they be able to remain calm and shelter in place like they were trained to do? In truth, you only ever learned how you reacted in a crisis when confronted with one.

Not that Jim’s expectations were set in stone -- he trusted his people skills and instincts enough to have a general idea of who would make it through the training successfully, and who could find themselves in trouble along the way -- but he wouldn't mind finding that he misjudged some of them, and hoped they would all do well.

He glanced at Svoboda, who was sitting with his hands clasped over his knees, the fabric of his trousers, the same tactical khakis as the others wore, bunching underneath his palms. His hands left damp patches on the fabric. Cadet Svoboda looked extremely young compared to his peers, men and women who had years of experience on him. Jim decided he wouldn't address it. The last thing Svoboda needed right now was to lose confidence because his superior officer was singling him out right before the mission.

He turned his attention to Lieutenant Tâm, who had raised her hand. “What if you can’t reach the next designated location?” she asked.

“Focus, and proceed to the next one,” Jim replied, grateful for Tâm’s presence. With twenty years of security service under her belt, she was undoubtedly more qualified to give this course than to attend it, but he’d seen some of the admiring looks the younger attendees had given her over the past few weeks. And now, with deployment imminent, they were trying to emulate her calm demeanor, even if it was just for show. “If all else fails…” he crouched down to pick up his survival kit, identical to the duffel bag each participant had to carry with them, and pulled out a flare. “You use this to call for help.”

The door of the briefing room opened and McCoy entered followed by his two nurses. The room was already too small as it was, and they took positions against the far wall, waiting quietly, McCoy’s only acknowledgement a small nod.

“When triggered, the flare will transmit a distress signal on a subspace frequency, as well as initiate a highly visible beacon, which will let us know you’re in need of immediate assistance. We will beam you out as soon as we’ve confirmed your location. In the case of a minor injury, we trust you to administer your own first aid and continue on with the mission,” Jim continued. “Dr. McCoy will go over, one last time, the contents of your emergency kit. And demonstrate how to perform a simple triage on yourself, or others.” McCoy nodded and walked over to Jim, who slipped past him and assumed the doctor’s previous position by the door.

He listened while McCoy walked the students through the emergency protocols again, thoroughly reviewing every item as if it were the very first time the participants were hearing about them. The shadows underneath McCoy’s eyes were faint but still present, and if Jim were to venture a guess, he would say McCoy had hardly slept any better than Jim had. However, if McCoy’s earlier claim was truthful, he would be fine tonight, as well as the other nights that followed.

Jim didn’t hold onto such high hopes for himself.

*

_Five days later_

“Do you have any --”

“Go fish.”

Nurse Lang shook his head, shoulders shaking with laughter. “Avi, you’re supposed to let Mr. Sulu ask first.”

“Oh.” Nurse th’Avihlok looked at his cards again, his white brows furrowed. “This is an odd game.”

“All human games are odd, th’Avihlok,” McCoy chimed in, a sort of amused finality in his voice that Jim was starting to get used to. All of McCoy’s opinions were voiced like plain, centuries-old truths. He looked up from his own set of cards to Sulu. “You were saying?”

“Do you have any fours?” Sulu repeated.

th’Avihlok glared at Sulu, and then slowly pulled a card from his hand and handed it to him.

“Thank you very much,” Sulu said cheerfully, placing another set of four cards next to him before turning his attention to Jim. “Captain, do you happen to have any kings?”

Jim smirked and handed over his king of hearts. It was obvious Sulu was counting the cards, which in his opinion, was kind of childish. Still, after a boring week of playing socially acceptable card games in the officer’s mess, he would take any route to ending the game early, including cheating by his helmsman. Hell, he’d have done it himself, if he’d thought of it.

Back on the _Enterprise_ , during the rare bouts of boredom, the crew would play the occasional poker game, a far more exciting pastime. That and chess, although the crew had decided a long time ago they didn’t want to play against either Jim or Spock anymore.

Poker was more of a game of chance, opportunity and unpredictable cards, which leveled the playing field nicely. Plus it gave the players an opportunity to indulge in banter and ship’s gossip, not unwelcome in an otherwise hierarchical work structure. But after McCoy had informed Jim that this was nurse th’Avihlok’s first experience working with a team that was predominantly human, and with th’Avihlok having a typical Andorian sense of humor (that is, none whatsoever), Jim begrudgingly decided that poker wouldn’t be conducive to a harmonious work environment aboard ship.

After five days on the _Anansi,_ Jim couldn’t believe that McCoy had no experience being on a starship. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, since McCoy had been on a starship numerous times at the Academy. Individuals in the Medical track at the Academy needed the stipulated number of hours of off-planet experience to graduate. While McCoy had successfully managed to have each and every one of those assignments on either a starbase or a UFP planet, he would’ve still had to take a starship to get there, becoming part of the ship’s roster like any cadet.

McCoy’s anxiousness had disappeared after the first night, just as he said it would. The next night, when Jim went back to the officer’s lounge after fruitlessly chasing sleep, he had found the room deserted. He was still trying to decide if the disappointment he’d felt at not finding McCoy there was normal, or a sign of something more troubling.

Against all expectations, McCoy had made himself right at home in his temporary medbay, and had even asked permission to take samples of Rigelius VII’s soil to explore and document the planet’s microbiome. Good practice for his nurses and a good diversion for him, he’d said. The request was outside normal ship’s routine, not a task a starship usually performed unless it was a science or exploratory vessel. Needless to say, all of Piper’s information on McCoy, which had been sparse, immediately came to Jim’s mind. Which made him wonder if the real reason McCoy wanted the soil, was so he could discover and report on the dangers of the planet, ensuring that Jim, or any other Starfleet crew member, would never set foot on its surface again. Dismissing such fanciful notions as the result of sleep deprivation, Jim was, nonetheless, impressed by the diligence required by such an undertaking – and, at least in part, fascinated by the thought that, for once, he would get to review a report of McCoy’s he was actually authorized to read.

So far, from Jim’s point of view, the training mission had been nothing more than an extended interlude of professional observation and interaction. Not that he intentionally sought out the other crew. The _Anansi_ ’s size and crew complement were so small, the days so calm and uneventful, he’d easily gotten to know everyone under his command quite well. If McCoy happened to be the most interesting of the lot, that was hardly his fault now, was it?

Besides, there were plenty of reasons for Jim to find himself visiting the ship’s medbay every day. To date, five participants had had to abort early, and while they had sustained no serious injuries, Jim had insisted on seeing them as soon as possible for a debrief in the medbay, while the experience was still fresh and vivid in their minds. He had pushed them to reflect on their performance while McCoy worked on patching them back up (bruised egos notwithstanding), guiding them to insights that might prove valuable in future situations.

Jim had been delighted to find that McCoy’s blistering tongue and brusque treatment style hadn’t been devised specifically for rash captains, but were an integral part of McCoy’s bedside manner. He’d seen the tears in Lieutenant Morgan’s eyes when, with a minimum of fuss, the good doctor had hypo’d her before resetting the bone in her ankle. And he’d done his best not to laugh, since Starfleet captains were expected to show _some_ decorum, at the tongue-lashing Ensign El Sadat received once McCoy learned how the young man had managed to almost completely sever his own finger.

Dr. McCoy had none of Piper’s calm, fatherly countenance, but what he lacked in tact, he more than made up for with his deft medical skills. Something highly valued in a ship’s doctor.

The fact that McCoy was about a million times hotter than Dr. Piper was just an added bonus, in Jim’s opinion.

But it was best not to dwell on that too much, Jim thought. McCoy was in a relationship, and even Jim had a limit to the amount of morally questionable actions he could justify for himself.

He took another look at the cards in his hands. Maybe if he played badly enough, Sulu could clear out the table in the next round.

It was nurse Lang’s turn, and Sulu was talking to th’Avihlok while Lang considered his next card request.

“How are you enjoying Yorktown so far? Go fish,” Sulu said, having two conversations at once.

“We’re growing used to our new home,” th’Avihlok replied, looking pleased. Jim knew Nurse th’Avihlok had transferred to Yorktown from another starbase to be with his three partners, a popular Andorian opera trio.

“I was stationed on Starbase 7 before this, in the Andor sector,” th’Avihlok continued. “So it still feels a bit strange, at times, to be among so many humans.”

“Oh?” Sulu arched his brow. “And what was your opinion on said humans up until now?” he asked, absently, his attention largely on his cards. Sulu was apparently too busy estimating the number of cards left in the deck to pay close attention to the conversation.

That fact was completely lost on th’Avihlok though, and he went quiet for a bit as he pondered on Sulu’s question. “Humans speak much in the company of strangers,” he began, his already soft voice growing softer with introspection. “But they say very little, and have many secrets. That’s my opinion, at present, based on my personal experiences.”

Nurse Lang narrowed his eyes at his Andorian colleague. “Avi, that can’t be your whole opinion of us as a species,” he said, appearing slightly outraged. He looked around the table at his colleagues. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who objects to this description.”

Jim opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, McCoy had taken the bait. “I don’t know, Lang, I feel like there’s a little bit of truth hidden there,” McCoy drawled. He turned to Jim, his face the picture of innocence. “Captain, what do you think?”

Jim could feel that all eyes were on him, but sadly for McCoy, it took a little more than one pointed remark to tie his tongue. He faced th’Avihlok with the same diplomatic aplomb he usually reserved for Starfleet ambassadors, and nodded. “Very interesting observation, thank you Lieutenant.” He could see McCoy’s impish grin from the corner of his eye, but pretended not to notice.

Jim’s reply seemed to fuel Lang’s outrage even more, and apparently aware that he’d lost two of his allies, he turned to Sulu for additional support. And because all attention was now on th’Avihlok, Jim took the opportunity to gesture at McCoy’s bickering nurses with an arched brow that he hoped conveyed ‘happy now’?

McCoy shrugged, laid his cards on the table, and pointed at the food synthesizer. He rose from his chair and Jim followed suit, making sure they were outside the range of the others’ hearing before he spoke. “So you like creating discord between your nurses?”

McCoy snorted. “To cease playing that stupid game?” He looked at Jim, his hazel eyes, more gold than green tonight, shining with mirth. “Absolutely.”

McCoy ordered two Vulcan spice teas which, remembering the doctor’s original reaction to the hot beverage, amused Jim. Apparently McCoy had developed a taste for the drink over the past few days. He handed one to Jim. In the background Jim could still hear Sulu, Lang and th’Avihlok arguing, though the topic of conversation had shifted to music. Whatever opinion th’Avihlok was espousing seemed equally unwelcome because, again, Lang was responding in an outraged manner. Jim gave a meaningful look at McCoy, who seemed to be having similar thoughts to his own, and they both sneaked out the door, more than happy to leave the bickering behind.

There was something intimate about walking quietly shoulder to shoulder with McCoy through the empty corridor. Like playing hooky in high school. Jim couldn’t help but smile down into his spice tea -- which was very hard to drink without burning his tongue while walking -- at the idea of leaving their fellow crewmembers behind without a word or any feelings of remorse.

As one, they turned the corner into the corridor which lead towards the bridge. In truth, though, Jim had no actual destination in mind. He was simply enjoying the peace and companionship resulting from their escape. He wondered if McCoy felt the same way, or if the doctor was just glad for a chance to stretch his legs? At the pace they were walking, it was hard to tell. McCoy _seemed_ like he was in a good mood. But that could be because the days in orbit around Rigelius VII were coming to a close, and not any real desire for Jim’s company.

"How about a guided tour of this tin can before I head back to Sickbay?"

“Sure,” Jim agreed, surprised but not unwilling.

The _Anansi_ was an older model but Jim knew his starships. They started in engineering and slowly made their way back to the upper decks. And to Jim’s amazement, McCoy actually asked a lot of good questions, as if he were really interested and not just killing time. Jim was halfway through a detailed explanation of the inner workings of the gravimetric field displacement manifold when he noticed McCoy was staring at Jim with an amused expression.

“Sorry,” Jim said. “Too much information.”

McCoy shook his head. “Not at all,” he replied reassuringly. “You just sound more like an engineer than a captain.”

“We’re supposed to know how our ship works,” Jim explained. He hesitated, but then added. “Most accidents on a ship are warp core related, so it’s good to be prepared.” Rather than lingering on the subject, he hastily asked McCoy, “Is there any other place onboard you wanted to see?”

“The captain’s quarters,” McCoy replied.

Jim stared at him with an arched brow.

McCoy scoffed and swatted at Jim’s shoulder. “Not like that, you ass. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Jim’s quarters on the _Anansi_ were miniscule compared to his quarters on the _Enterprise_. It was a simple, single room, narrow and cramped, furnished with a desk and a bed which barely accommodated his frame.

“This is it,” Jim said, stepping aside after keying the door open, so that McCoy could enter first. “Try not to be too impressed.”

“I wasn’t expecting a penthouse,” McCoy explained, his hands at his side as he looked at the ceiling like he was hoping to find stairs leading to a second floor. “But this is bleak even for Starfleet’s standards. Could’ve at least added a little window there,” he pointed at the wall over the head of the bed.

Jim shrugged. “They probably didn’t want to risk the hull’s integrity,” he explained. “Especially on a vessel like this. It was built for transport, not battle.”

“Still, it feels pretty claustrophobic to me.”

Jim smiled. “That would be the least of a captain’s worries. Personal preferences or esthetics are rarely a consideration in the design of most starships.”

McCoy snorted. “So much for comfort,” he said acerbically. He pulled out the chair from under Jim’s desk and sat down. “God forbid a captain gets comfortable on his own ship.”

Jim chuckled. "It's not so bad," he said. He laughed again when he saw the unconvinced expression on McCoy's face. "You get used to it, is what I'm trying to say."

McCoy didn't seem to want to contest that claim and he turned his attentions back to his surroundings, which were all unremarkable in Jim's eyes but apparently fascinating to McCoy. As Jim watched from his perch on the bed McCoy's gaze moved assessingly over everything in the room like he'd never seen a captain's quarters prior to today. His gaze lingered on the empty walls, the desk with its standard comm unit, and lastly Jim's neatly made single bed.

Jim let his own gaze roam for a moment. McCoy really was very handsome. Strangely, his good looks were enhanced by his sharp tongue and hot temper. Nothing about McCoy seemed out of place – as if he had never been anything but steady, and capable and absolutely thrilling. No wonder Luca asked him out within minutes of meeting him. Hell, maybe he would've done the same. Then again, knowing himself, he probably would've gone for a different approach.

"What are you smirking about?" McCoy asked him with an arched brow.

"Nothing," Jim replied quickly. It hadn’t been his idea to go sit in his bedroom. "So…how is life in space treating you?" he asked, wanting to change the subject.

Jim half-expected more of McCoy's signature grumpiness, but to his surprise, McCoy remained silent.

It irked Jim more than he expected it would.

"Wow," Jim said, trying to keep his tone light-hearted but failing miserably. "You really do hate it out here, don't you?" he asked, wincing at his own aggrieved tone.

McCoy seemed surprised as well, judging by his puzzled expression.

“It’s not a question of hate, Jim,” McCoy said, sighing heavily. He looked guarded, like he was half-expecting Jim to lash out.

Hell, Jim thought, he already had. It had been a while since he’d lost control of his emotions that way.

“Then what is it?”

McCoy rubbed his jaw. Silence filled the small room, McCoy taking his time to answer.

Jim couldn’t help but think that McCoy was trying to figure out what _not_ to say. th’Avihlok was right, humans did enjoy their little secrets.

“Space is unforgiving, Jim. It’s lonely and isolated and… grim,” McCoy said, shattering the silence into small, sharp pieces. “I know we’re not supposed to admit it, at least not out loud. But there’s nothing out here,” McCoy continued, and he gestured at the windowless wall that separated them from the vacuum of space. “Is it so strange to believe that I’m not thrilled at the thought of living out here in the middle of so much emptiness? Without a community or a place to call home? It’s too lonely a life for me.”

If there was anything Jim could immediately be sure of, it was that McCoy knew absolutely nothing about what he was judging so freely. “You can be lonely anywhere,” Jim replied impatiently, going for the jugular. “Can’t you?”

Jim knew he had struck a nerve when he saw McCoy’s expression darken. He was relieved; he was more at ease with McCoy’s annoyance than his perceptive, carefully chosen words.

“Yes, you can Jim. But I’m not just talking about the loneliness of space. I’m talking about the loneliness of position, of rank. The loneliness that you choose for yourself, day after day,” McCoy said accusingly. He gave Jim a long hard stare. “Now I’m just going to go ahead and assume you think I disapprove of your life—”

Jim opened his mouth to protest, but McCoy pressed on.

“—when all I’m trying to say is that in order to live a life like yours, you need to give something up. Something essential.”

“And you don’t think it’s worth that kind of sacrifice,” Jim concluded.

“No, I don’t. I don’t think it’s worth it,” McCoy repeated. “And I don’t think I ever will.”

It took a certain amount of guts to voice an opinion as bluntly honest as McCoy’s was to his face. And while Jim felt a trace of admiration for the doctor’s courage, if he were being equally honest, for all his thirty years of wisdom gained from living through less than ideal circumstances, he couldn’t help but feel judged, no matter how adamantly McCoy claimed otherwise.

It's not that he was angry with McCoy, but the frustration he felt was nearly overwhelming.

If only McCoy knew how much he'd sacrificed to sit in the captain's chair. Of what it had cost him, and the others who had chosen a similar path. Maybe then McCoy would understand how much he’d sacrificed when he burned the _Enterprise_ ’s shattered saucer on Altamid’s surface in order to save his crew.

Loneliness had nothing to do with the way Jim had chosen to live his life.

Maybe the good doctor would finally understand how loneliness had nothing to do with it.

Jim absorbed McCoy’s unbending expression and crossed arms, waiting, no, _daring_ the man to say more. But McCoy remained silent, his own stare implacable, his message clear as day.

The sound of the bosun’s whistle rang in the captain’s quarters, startlingly loud in the charged silence.

“Captain Kirk to the bridge,” Sulu’s voice, magnified by the intercom, filled the small room, and Jim sprang to his feet, hastening over to the desk to reply.

“Kirk here.” Jim wasn't sure whether he was relieved or not at the abrupt end of their conversation. He just knew that it felt as if there was a bit more air in the room. He glanced briefly at McCoy, concealing his regret over the chasm dividing them beneath the cool, captain’s mask that was second nature now. “We’re on our way.”

*

"Lieutenant Sulu, report," Jim said as he stepped onto the bridge, closely followed by McCoy.

Despite having the conn, Sulu sat at the helmsman’s console instead of in the captain’s chair, slender fingers tapping his display board. He turned to Ensign Koski, who was manning communications. “Status report for the captain, Ensign.”

The bridge’s screen changed into that of a magnified map of the southernmost region of Rigelius VII, a red dot blinking in the center of it. Ensign Koski cleared her throat. “We’ve received a distress signal from the planet’s surface,” she reported. Despite being visibly nervous, she spoke in a clear, steady voice. “Coordinates indicate that it’s Cadet Svoboda, sir.”

A chill went down Jim's spine at the mention of Svoboda's name. It was the last name he wanted to hear in connection with a distress signal. He walked over to Koski's station, making sure to keep his fear and worry hidden from the young ensign. "And why haven't we beamed him out?"

“We can’t, sir.” Koski’s fingers moved quickly over the station’s interface, changing both displays into a weather map where a large, black cloud hovered over the red dot. “A sandstorm has hit the area, the biggest one we’ve yet seen, and it's preventing us from beaming anything up from that area. The sandstorm is generating a lot of ionic static in the atmosphere which is interfering with our readings.”

“Any idea why?” Jim asked.

Koski nodded, hesitantly. “I think so, sir. I’ve cross-referenced the ion signatures with the soil samples taken a couple of days ago, and I just finished running a geotechnical scan.” She turned to look at Jim. “It’s filled with Topaline, sir.”

“Good work, Ensign,” Jim said, squeezing Koski's shoulder. "Sounds to me like we'll need to mount a rescue. I want an estimate on how long that storm will last, and trust you’ll find a good spot with minimal interference to beam me down.”

He straightened and turned to face Sulu, surprised and pleased by Koski’s quick analysis. There was no time to dwell on it at the moment, however, so further accolades would have to wait. “Alert engineering, get them to rig up some ionic filters for our pattern enhancers. Tell them to meet me in the transporter room, I'm beaming down myself.” He walked back to the turbolift where McCoy was waiting. "Doctor, be ready for us."

“Yes, sir," McCoy said, and he joined Jim in the turbolift to the lower deck.

"Have your nurses on standby in the transporter room. I don't want to waste any time in the event Svoboda’s injuries are serious," Jim said, as the lift quickly descended. The ride down was short, and he strode off as soon as the lift doors opened.

Adrenaline was flooding Jim's bloodstream. Not that he was scared or nervous. Far from it. He felt focused, and his head was clearer than it had been for months. As captain it was his duty to ensure every single crewmember got home safely, and he wasn’t going to fail Svoboda now. He had years of experience in dealing with emergency situations, and his survival skills were exemplary. This rescue was something he knew he had the best chance of completing.

When he reached the transporter room engineering hadn't arrived yet, and he took the opportunity to head straight to the emergency gear stowed on the back wall. He was beaming down to the surface in the middle of a raging sandstorm. He needed to be fully equipped in order to survive the adverse conditions, and the emergency packs were loaded with items to cover all contingencies. Jim didn’t intend to take any chances in getting safely in – and out.

“Koski for Captain Kirk." Koski's voice rang from the shipwide comms and Kirk walked over to the comm panel.

"Yes, Ensign."

“I’ve managed to find you a location that’s about two kilometers from the distress signal. The area is currently covered by the eye of the storm, so the atmospheric disturbance is less there and the dust won’t be as thick.”

“Excellent,” Jim said, growing fonder of Koski by the second. “Send the coordinates to transport. Kirk out.”

The doors of the transporter room slid open and two young engineers appeared carrying the three pattern enhancers he had requested.

"Strap them to the backpack," Jim said, shucking his boots, and stripping off his gold tunic and uniform pants. He changed into the weather-resistant suit specifically designed for the planet's climate.

Once he had finished dressing he slipped his arms through the backpack straps, and walked unto one of the transporter pads.

"Energize."

*

Something was wrong.

Everything felt too loud, and too rough, like he was still stuck in that damned sandstorm, buffeted on all sides, nearly blinded and barely able to breathe. The noise increased and dizziness swept over him as he felt the ground give way. No, that wasn’t right, he thought muzzily. The light was unnaturally bright, the air around him too still for him to still be on the planet.

He drew a wheezing breath, his chest tight. Every muscle in his body throbbed and ached, as if he’d been trampled on, then twisted. He tried to sit up and someone gripped his wrist with cool, strong fingers, holding him down. Words, unintelligible and urgent, reverberated through his skull, drowned out by the ringing in his ears. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Everything was a bright, colorful blur, and he swallowed hard as the room spun. The hazy, swimming light cleared a little, revealing the face of the Andorian nurse - he couldn’t remember his name – bent low as he spoke to him, but Jim couldn’t understand the man’s words.

Where was Svoboda? Jim had been holding him a minute ago. Had he lost him? Had he failed?

Hands were on him again – lifting, pulling. His body lurched upward, igniting an explosion of pain in his head. He struggled against the hands, but his movements were disjointed and clumsy. He had to get to Svoboda.

Suddenly, McCoy was there, scowling. He said something, his voice so piercing Jim squeezed his eyes shut with a groan. His heart hammered frantically as the ringing in his ears increased. He barely felt the sharp sting at the side of his neck before darkness engulfed him.

*

Someone was talking to him.

With an effort of will, Jim slowly opened his eyes. The bright light was gone, but the buzzing in his ears was still there. He tried to move his head and nausea roiled his gut. 

McCoy’s face suddenly appeared in his line of sight. He hovered closely, his brows furrowed in a concerned frown as he spoke. “Jim, we’re on our way back to Yorktown,” he said softly.

_Yorktown? That couldn’t be right. They were orbiting Rigelius VII. He’d beamed down to the surface, into the eye of the storm..._

McCoy was shushing him, his voice gentle. “You’re in sickbay now,” he said. “There was an accident, and you were injured, but we were able to beam both of you out.”

_An accident…_

He tried to sit up, but McCoy laid a firm hand on his chest. His body felt too heavy to move and his head felt detached, too large for his body.

“Easy,” McCoy said. “You need to stay still. We’re still regenerating your neural functions. You have a serious concussion. But I promise you’ll be up and running in no time.”

Jim tried to sit up again, but his body barely moved. He blinked, trying to keep his eyes from closing, even as he felt them grow heavier by the second.

“Jim, listen to me, I need you to stay still.” A cool hand pressed to his forehead. “You need to sleep, let me take it from here.”

He didn’t have time to sleep. He’d been holding Svoboda a minute ago.

“Cadet Svoboda is here in Sickbay and he’s stable,” McCoy said. “He has some spinal injuries, so I’m keeping him in a medically induced coma to slow neurodegeneration, but he was alert and oriented once he regained consciousness.” He glanced at the medical scanner in his hand and moved his fingers over the display. “They’re prepping an OR for me in Yorktown as we speak. We’ll be beaming directly into the hospital as soon as we dock. You’ll be beaming down with nurse Lang after us.”

McCoy’s words felt long and too difficult to follow. The sound of his voice retreated farther and farther away, as he was pulled into encroaching blackness. Jim tried to struggle, fighting to stay awake, to ask McCoy to explain one more time. But his lips refused to cooperate and his eyes fluttered shut.

And he slept, deep and dreamless, for the first time in months.

*

The next time Jim woke up he was in a hospital bed in Yorktown.

It was as if someone had woken him up from a deep slumber. His head felt heavy and stuffed with cotton wool. He raised a hand to his head where his scalp felt most painful, and discovered a tiny bald spot high on the back of his head, the familiar sensation of newly regenerated skin tender beneath his fingers. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember everything that happened, but the thoughts were fuzzy and hard to make out.

He remembered McCoy talking to him, the bright, overhead lights of the _Anansi's_ medbay stinging his eyes, but why was he there? What had happened?

Like a flash of lightning, the image of a human being half-covered by a layer of fine red sand invaded his mind, and he jolted up in bed.

_Svoboda._

"Ah, you're awake, Captain." Jim turned toward the sound and saw the tall figure of Nurse Lang who'd just entered the room. He walked over to study the monitor by the side of the bed.

"How long have I been here?" Jim asked, barely recognizing his voice.

"About six hours, but you’ve been under treatment since the _Anansi_ ,” Lang replied and he picked up Jim’s medical PADD. "Those regens are really hard on the body, sir. And you were injured pretty badly."

Jim clenched his teeth using what felt like all his strength to turn and check his own monitor. He scrolled through his own treatment, wobbling as he tried to keep his balance on one arm. From the looks of it he'd had a concussion, and a number of bruises and abrasions spread over his body, which explained why most of his skin felt so raw and sensitive. With a groan he turned on his back and lay down for a second, feeling a little winded.

"You know I have access to your chart right here," Lang said as he looked up at Jim from his PADD with an arched brow. "And Dr. McCoy did tell me to bring you up to speed once you woke up."

"Fine," Jim replied. "Bring me up to speed."

Lang lowered the PADD so Jim could see it clearly, the information largely similar to the ones on the monitor. “You’ve been under treatment for a stage III concussion for the past twenty two hours, which coincides with the time we left Rigelius VII’s orbit. During your neural regenerative treatment we’ve also treated the minor abrasions on your—"

"I already know that, Lang," Jim growled. "Where is cadet Svoboda?"

"Dr. McCoy is still performing surgery on cadet Svoboda, sir," Lang replied quickly, slightly alarmed by Jim's sudden change in temper.

"Where?"

"Just a second." Lang looked at the PADD again, his eyes scanning the screen. “OR twelve…What are you doing?"

Jim sat up again and swung both his legs out of the bed. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he replied impatiently. He stood up, stumbling a bit after the distance between his feet and the floor proved a bit too ambitious a first step. "I'm leaving."

"Oh, no you're not," Lang said, running to the other side of the bed just in time to catch Jim by the shoulders as his knees weren't up to walking properly just yet. Lang let out a nervous chuckle as he easily hoisted Jim back up on his feet. "Dr McCoy ordered you to remain on bedrest until your personal physician clears you for duty."

Jim paid no attention. He could see his captain's uniform neatly folded up on the chair on the other side of the room. Now if he could only get there. He turned his attention back to Lang who was watching him cautiously, like he was a cat about to bolt for an open door. But Jim was too tired to run and had no intention to do so. 

Jim sighed, and turned back to the bed, which was looking more inviting by the moment. "Fine," he groused. "I’ll get back in bed. But tell Mark to hurry up, I don't plan on spending a second longer in this bed than I have to." He climbed wearily back onto the biobed, before shooting an expectant glare at Lang. The tall nurse looked relieved that Jim was acquiescing to McCoy’s orders.

"Of course, Captain," Lang said with a short nod. He sat down in the visitor's chair. "While we're waiting for Dr. Piper, please let me know if you need anything."

Jim smiled. "I wouldn’t say no to some water.”

Lang stood up and walked to the sink.

"Lang, stop," Jim said, making the man halt and turn back to him. "I prefer a bottle of water. Yorktown’s tap water tastes odd to me." He could see the mistrust in Nurse Lang's expression and smiled. "Lang, I can barely stand. How much trouble can I get into on my own?”

“Right away, sir,” Nurse Lang said, stiff-lipped, as he walked over to the door.

Jim knew he didn't have a lot of time. He rolled out of bed, counting the fact that he managed to steady himself with a hand to the frame before falling on his face as a personal victory. He pulled his uniform on over his medical gown in record time, and left the room, walking confidently through the hospital hallway, trying his best to blend in as he made for the nearest elevator. 

He was already three levels down, and congratulating himself on his ingenuity, when Nurse Lang reappeared, out of breath, with a bottle of water in his hand and a thoroughly pissed off expression on his face.

“Thanks, Lang," Jim said, reaching for the water in the nurse's hand. "I really am thirsty."

To Jim's surprise Lang regained his composure fairly quickly, his annoyance toned down to a acceptable level for a superior officer. “Dr. McCoy said you’d probably try to dash out of the hospital the first chance you got. I didn’t think he meant it literally."

“Sounds like he’s getting to know me,” Jim said, taking a sip of water and handing the bottle back. He looked for a sign. “Where is the OR McCoy is using?”

Lang sighed. “I’ll take you there but I’m going to get you some shoes first,” he said, throwing the bottle into the nearest bin.

Jim sheepishly looked down at his bare feet, perhaps he wasn’t as awake as he thought he was.

Lang pulled a pair of patient slippers from a nearby supply cart before leading Jim down the hall. He stopped in front of a door bearing a sign that read ‘Observation Gallery’. The large observation theater was empty when they entered.

“They’re usually waiting in line to watch a surgery like this,” Lang said. “But Dr. McCoy wanted to keep this one discreet. The patient is a cadet after all.”

Jim said nothing. He was watching the operating clock ticking away on the far wall, well past the six hour mark, every minute since the _Anansi_ had docked in Yorktown. He sat down in the seat at the center of the front row, and looked down. McCoy was dressed in his surgical gown, hunched over Svoboda, and surrounded by a team of other doctors and nurses. McCoy’s hands were just above Svoboda’s back, the small movement of his fingers controlled and sure as he guided his surgeon’s instruments.

Jim didn’t remember the last time he’d seen an open surgery except for some old holo’s they’d watch during biology classes in high school. Parts of Svoboda’s spine were uncovered, just like that in that holo, his only protection the steri-field around him. Jim gripped the edge of his seat and leaned forward, as if a closer look would allow him a better understanding of the procedures McCoy was employing..

Lang sat down in the seat next to Jim.

“I don’t need a nanny, Lang,” Jim growled.

Lang didn’t budge. “Dr. McCoy said I’m not supposed to leave you until your personal physician arrives. If he finds out I did he’ll put me on report. So, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Sir.”

It wasn’t the response Jim was hoping for, but he ignored Lang, focusing instead on McCoy, who was now using a laser scalpel near Svoboda’s neck. The doctor’s steady hand made a small incision, while the rest of his medical team watched.

“The cadet couldn’t be in better hands you know,” Lang said. Unlike Jim, he wasn’t sitting on the edge of his seat, but his expression was still that of visible awe as he looked down at the surgery below. “He’s one of our best surgeons. At least that’s what all the OR nurses say.”

It was a clumsy attempt at reassurance, but Jim gave the nurse a short nod. The sudden sound of the door opening caught him by surprise.

Dr. Piper stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, wearing the mellow expression Jim had long ago become accustomed to seeing. “Ah, Jim there you are.” He walked over, placed a hand on Jim’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “McCoy contacted me when the _Anansi_ arrived back in Yorktown,” he said, his tone grave. “Asked me to take over your care. The last two times I stopped in to check on you, you were still out.”

“Dr. McCoy’s orders were to keep the Captain on bed rest until you ordered otherwise,” Lang said, with the satisfied air of someone whom he’d found an ally. “Captain Kirk left his room without permission and insisted on being brought to the OR when I caught up with him. _I_ think—”

“Nurse Lang,” Dr. Piper interjected, his expression unchanged, despite his firm tone. “Please tell nurse Keahi that I have found my patient.”

Lang’s face dropped. “I... yes, sir,” he stammered. He stood up and exited the gallery without as much as a goodbye.

Piper sat down next to Jim in the seat Lang had occupied moments ago. “How are you feeling?” he asked, cutting right to the chase.

“Fine,” Jim replied, his eyes still on McCoy. The doctor continued to work on Svoboda’s spine, nodding occasionally as someone spoke to him. Jim glanced at the screens on the far wall that displayed Svodoba’s vitals, and tried not to imagine a flat line there. What the hell was thinking, allowing an inexperienced cadet to go down to an uninhabited planet?

“Jim?” Piper said sharply.

“What?” he asked, irritated at having to redirect his attention from the surgery. Not that he could see much detail from this distance.

“I asked if your head hurts?"

“No,” he said shortly, but it was a lie. His head had begun to throb in time with his heartbeat. He pressed a hand to the back of his neck, as if that would stem the tide of pain. “He wasn’t supposed to come with us,” Jim confessed, guilt heavy in his chest. “Mark?”

“Yes, Jim?”

“What if he never walks again?”

Piper sighed softly. “I happen to know plenty of exceptional starfleet officers who can’t walk, Jim,” he countered with an arched brow. “But Cadet Svoboda is young and healthy. I’ve looked at the injuries myself. Dr. McCoy’s had far worse cases than this. As our First Officer would say ‘the odds are in his favor’. He’ll need rehabilitation, of course. They’ll probably send him back to Earth, to Starfleet General, for that. He certainly won’t be your TA anymore.”

Jim scoffed. “The least of my concerns, believe me.”

“Never believed otherwise,” Piper replied and gave Jim his full attention.

Jim braced himself. After all these years, he could sense Piper’s lectures coming from a mile away.

“As for you, Jim, my medical opinion is that you’re not as fine as you pretend to be.”

Most of the time, Jim knew how to maneuver around Piper’s well-intentioned lectures, but this was not the time, and not the place. He shot Piper a cold look, and forced himself to stay seated, hands relaxed. “Is that so?” he asked, keeping his tone level. “And what brought you to that conclusion?”

“McCoy forwarded me your medical record from the _Anansi_ , Jim,” Piper replied. “Your body showed a significant amount of stress—”

“I was probably under a lot of stress then.”

“—higher than your earlier readings during similar and worse situations,” Piper continued calmly. He took out the PADD he was carrying and showed it to Jim. “Look at your CRH and cortisol levels during your last physical compared to yesterday.” He looked at Jim with that annoying medical stare he sometimes did.

“So?” Jim said, too tired and in too much pain to quickly come up with a countering remark.

“So, I’m concerned,” Piper replied. “And for good reason.” He placed the PADD in his lap, and looked at Jim again, as if he could discover what Jim was thinking if he stared long enough at him.

“I seem to recall you informing me that I was the picture of good health after my last physical,” Jim said, and he looked at Piper, proud of his ability to recall that verdict despite the shards of agony stabbing his brain.

“That was particular set of findings, Jim.”

Jim snorted. “So when you find no reason for concern, it’s not worth noting, but when the numbers are off with a _particular set of findings_ that’s a cause for concern? Why don’t we just flip a coin next time?” he mocked. “Heads, I’m good. Tails, I’m in need of some R&R? It’ll save you a lot of time and effort before you quit your job altogether.”

To Jim’s disappointment and shame, Piper didn’t react to Jim’s words. His CMO just stared at him, long and hard, until Jim turned his attention back to the medical procedure taking place below him. Too proud to apologize, he watched as two nurses moved over to McCoy’s side.

“I’m done talking about this, Mark.”

“I’m not,” Piper said sternly, his voice loud in the quiet room.

Jim looked up. Piper only raised his voice when he was angry – which happened rarely. Mark looked unruffled but his jaw was set, and Jim knew Piper was a step away from chewing him out, like he was still a wet behind the ears kid. Which only pissed Jim off more. Mark was retiring. He was no longer Mark’s problem.

But before he could say any of that, Piper spoke again.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” the doctor said determinedly.

Jim opened his mouth to deny it, but abruptly froze. Mark couldn’t possibly know that. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks, not since his last physical.

“You think McCoy wasn’t going to notice?”

“It’s none of his damn business,” Jim said. “He’s not my doctor.”

“Jim, sooner or later you’re going to have to talk to someone about this.”

Jim pounded his fist against the empty seat next to him. The hard noise echoed in the empty room. “Mark, I have just woken up after hours of regenerative therapy and I’m looking at the surgery of a cadet I’m directly responsible for,” Jim hissed. “And I haven’t spoken to his parents yet to tell them that I took their son on a training mission he wasn’t qualified for and almost killed him.” With every word Jim’s frustration and anger seemed to increase, but it didn’t feel like a relief to let it go. The room felt too small to hold all his problems at once. “I'm the captain of the flagship which is nothing more than a shattered disc on a planet on the other side of a fucking nebula, I have no first officer, no crew.” He looked at Piper. “And in the next couple of months, I’m not going to have a CMO, either.”

Piper sighed. “I’m not betraying you, Jim. I’m retiring. And I’m concerned about you.”

Jim rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. It felt like someone was splitting it open. “Don’t be,” he said. “I just need a little more time to adjust, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to do it all by yourself.”

Jim laughed humorlessly. “You’re starting to sound like Pike.” The words were out before he realized it, and he flinched, waiting for Mark to comment.

“High praise,” Piper replied conversationally. “Pike always had a way with words.”

Jim remained silent, the topic of Pike still painful after all these years. He could kick himself for mentioning Chris’s name.

Piper made an incomprehensible sound. He rested his hand on Jim’s shoulder again. Jim took a deep breath, and allowed himself to accept the small comfort.

They sat like that for a while, then Piper’s hand shifted.

“They’re closing him up, Jim,” he said, and he let go of Jim’s shoulder so that Jim could sit up and look down. Half the nurses were gone, and someone other than McCoy was hunched over Svoboda now, running a dermal regenerator over his skin.

McCoy had moved to stand near the wall, rolling his neck in tiny circles with his eyes closed. After a long moment, he looked up. McCoy’s eyes were red-tinged and ringed with the marks the micro-goggles had imprinted into his flesh.

Jim felt frozen beneath his stare, the gooseflesh raising on his arms. Still, he was reluctant to look away, hoping to read something from the man’s expression. But McCoy didn’t give any kind of signal that indicated Svoboda’s fate. McCoy abruptly turned away, and began to speak to one of his nurses. The nurse looked up at the observatory deck. With a respectful nod, she left the OR. McCoy stretched his back and neck, then turned his attention back to the nurse using the regenerator on Svoboda.

“I don’t think I want to talk about it, Mark,” Jim found himself saying. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” The skin on Svoboda’s back looked pristine again, but Jim of all people, knew appearances were deceiving. There was no guarantee that damage didn’t still lurk underneath.

“That I understand,” Piper replied. “But Jim, talking helps. And it doesn’t have to be with a professional,” he added quickly, when Jim turned on him with a frown.

The door to the observation deck opened with a hiss, and the nurse, who had been standing next to McCoy mere moments ago, entered. Jim could see now she was young, her dark skin unlined, her large black eyes still innocent looking.

“Captain Kirk?” she asked, her glance shifting between the two men. “Dr. McCoy sent me up here to tell you that the operation was successful.”

Jim felt a heavy weight lift off his chest and drew a shuddering breath.

The nurse was still talking.

“He said the patient would need extensive rehabilitation, but given that, the young man should make a full recovery.” She paused, and bit the inside of her lip, which made her look even younger than she probably was.

“Yes?” Jim asked, confused by her sudden hesitation.

“He said you need to get your stubborn ass back in bed,” she said quickly, clearly embarrassed. “That was a direct quote, sir.”

Jim’s brows arched all the way up. Piper, who was still seated, let out a surprised laugh.

“He also said you can talk to him through the comm on the wall there.” She pointed at a wall-mounted panel. “If you have any questions.”

Jim looked at Piper, who was still chuckling to himself. He rose, careful to keep his head still, and walked over to the comm to turn it on. “Kirk here.”

 _“Hey Jim.”_ McCoy sounded exhausted.

“Thank you for sending your nurse up here,” Jim said flatly, stiff lipped. “Your completely unnecessary message has been received.” He looked at the young lady who was backing toward the door, her posture wary. “I will be back in my bed… shortly.”

 _“I appreciate that,”_ McCoy said. _“I don’t want you to undo all my handiwork. Mark, I trust I can transfer your Captain back to your care?”_

“Of course,” Piper replied, his voice still heavy with laughter.

_“Good. Because after this, I’m passing out in the closest on-call room bunk. Oh and Jim?”_

“Yes?”

“ _Next time you make one of my nurses chase after you, I’ll give him permission to tackle you to the ground. Injured or not.”_

Piper, smiled, good mood apparently restored. “I like him, Jim,” he said.

Jim frowned, painfully aware that McCoy had been watching him more closely than he’d realized over the past week. He wondered just how much McCoy had deduced – then decided he didn’t want to know.


	8. Chapter 8

“Well Jim, it looks like your lack of hard work paid off,” Dr. Mark Piper said. 

Like always he turned his PADD over to Jim who, despite his lack of medical knowledge, still insisted on scrutinizing his own chart whenever he could. He was in the hospital, ten days after the return of the USS Anansi for, what he hoped to be, his last check-up. 

“You almost sound disappointed, Mark,” Jim replied, handing the PADD back to his CMO after a quick glance. The words ‘fit for duty’ were the only thing he needed to see to lift his spirits. 

To Jim any injury equaled a loss of freedom to some extent, but Mark had really outdone himself this time. While they both agreed that a swift recovery had to be the main goal, Jim didn’t expect the long list of restrictions -- no alcohol, no caffeine, no work, no strenuous activity of any kind (sex included) -- and the subsequent boredom that followed. There were only so many paper books you could read in a week. 

Mark had also implored Jim to try to sleep eight hours a day. That, of course, was impossible. Even if he wanted to, Jim hadn’t slept eight hours a night since he was ten years old. Besides, memories of Rigelius VII had flooded back to him the days following his return and seemed life-like whenever he closed his eyes. He didn’t know how many times he’d seen Svoboda’s limp form, twisted awkwardly at the bottom of a crevasse, how he’d tried to rappel down to get to him, how he fallen and the out-of-body experience he’d had where he’d managed to set up the beacons, just in time for the crew to beam the two of them out. 

Those memories were worse than restlessness and even worse than nightmares. At least with a nightmare he could try to convince himself that it wasn’t real.

“So, what’s next?” Jim asked, though he was already grabbing his jacket behind him, trying to get himself out of Mark’s examination room as quickly as possible. 

“You’re free to do as you please,” Mark said, arching his brow high when he saw the smug expression on Jim’s face. “But I still want to see you again, next week.” 

Jim was already up and by the door before Mark could finish his sentence. “Will do, doctor,” he said, waving at his CMO with a smile, who was shaking his head at him until the automatic door closed behind him. 

Of course, he knew what their next appointment would be about. Jim hadn’t forgotten the uncomfortable conversation they’d shared when he’d returned from Rigelius VII. But his mind was clear, and he had a whole week to prepare for whatever onslaught his CMO would have prepared for him. For now, he had his priorities straight -- he was going to be spending the next twenty-four hours trying to ease back into his restriction-free lifestyle, probably starting with an Irish coffee and ending in his bed with Lelal, who he’d already informed of his complete recovery that morning. Restrictions or not, he was not a machine. 

Whistling, he made his way down to the first floor and was nearly out the door when he heard someone call his name. 

Jim froze at the sound of McCoy’s voice. 

Just his luck. The second he managed to dislodge himself from one fussing doctor, he’d managed to return to the scrutinizing eye of another. 

He hadn’t spoken to McCoy once after the incident. It was surprisingly easy, as Piper’s restrictive regimen was as good an excuse as any to ignore his comm calls. McCoy hadn’t tried to reach out to him apart from that, though he did send Jim updates on Svoboda’s recovery, including the name and time of departure of the medical starship that was going to return the young cadet to Earth, once McCoy believed he was fit enough to travel. 

Only, that was one-way communication, and Jim had a feeling McCoy would have a lot more to say (he usually did), about the incident than he’d let on, and he wasn’t really in the mood to hear it. Besides, a part of Jim was still pissed at what McCoy told Piper about his sleeping troubles. He misjudged McCoy and was still dealing with the aftermath. So he couldn’t simply let bygones be bygones.

“Heading out?” Jim asked, once McCoy had caught up to him. 

McCoy was wearing his civilian clothes: heavy boots and a black jacket buttoned all the way up. Something Jim would’ve donned during an Iowan winter, not Yorktown’s artificial cold.

“I was, yeah,” McCoy said, placing his hands in his pockets. “But I saw you walking down the hallway, and I hadn’t seen you since last week, so ….” His voice trailed off and he narrowed his eyes when something alongside Jim caught his attention.

“What is it?” Jim asked, turning around in the direction of McCoy’s gaze.

McCoy sucked the air between his teeth, his hand resting on Jim’s shoulder as he looked at the side of Jim’s head. “Dr. Piper didn’t fix that for you?” he said with a frown. 

Jim resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

Of course McCoy’s primary concern would be a medical one. There was still a bald spot at the back of his head where they regenerated his skin. It wasn’t as small a patch as Jim initially thought it was -- more or less as big as his fist -- but his hair had been just long enough to cover most of it, and Mark hadn’t mentioned it at all. 

“It’s fine,” Jim said. He took a step back and smoothed his hair down in an attempt to hide it better. He hadn’t given the remnant of his injury a second thought, not with all the other things on his mind, but the way McCoy was looking at it made him feel self-conscious. 

“It’s not fine,” McCoy said with a frown. He lifted the hand Jim was using to hide the bald spot away and replaced it with his own, his fingers sliding on his scalp. “What’s he thinking letting a handsome guy like you walk around the base looking like that?” It was a nice compliment, but the pity in McCoy’s voice kind of soured its effect. “Let me fix it for you.”

Jim took a step back and craned his neck so his head was just out of McCoy’s reach. “I said it’s fine.” 

McCoy followed his movement. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He grabbed Jim firmly by the shoulders as he started steering him back into the hospital. “It’ll only take a minute.” 

Jim sighed in frustration, but knew better than to argue, most likely it wouldn’t do anything other than draw the argument out further, and he was getting used to McCoy wanting to get his way just about as much as he did. He let McCoy guide him into a consultation room and, resigned as he was, removed his jacket and threw it on the nearest chair. McCoy followed suit and walked over to a cabinet hidden in the far wall to pull out a small device. 

“Sit,” McCoy said, blindly pointing at a chair, his attention still on the machine in his hand. As he adjusted the settings, he said, “I’m just giving your follicles a boost. It should be about the same length by the end of the week.” 

“Ok,” Jim said, sitting down. He didn’t really care. 

McCoy moved to the back of Jim’s chair and placed the pads of his fingers gently on either side of Jim’s head, guiding his gaze. “Face forward.” 

Jim focused on the door leading to the hospital’s busy hallway. With nothing to occupy his mind, Jim felt hyper aware of McCoy’s faint touches. Clinical as they were, there was something incredibly pleasant about the way McCoy’s hands brushed over him, gently moving his hand through his hair. The pads of McCoy’s fingers were cool against his skin and he tensed his shoulders to resist the urge to shudder as goosebumps ran all the way up to the back of his neck. 

“Sorry, cold hands,” McCoy said, interchanging his touch by the faintly warm feeling and the gentle humming of the device in his hand. “Try not to move. It may take a while.”

Jim turned his head. “I thought you said only a minute?” he said with a frown. 

McCoy let out a soft chuckle. “I lied.” He nudged Jim to turn his head again by brushing a knuckle against Jim’s temple. 

Jim sighed. Between McCoy and Piper, he was really starting to consider avoiding the hospital altogether. 

“So, how’ve you been?” McCoy asked. 

“I’m f--”

“Fine?” McCoy answered before Jim could finish, and Jim could swear he could hear the smug smile that came with it. “I figured. Care to elaborate?” 

Jim pressed his lips together, vowing quietly to himself that he wouldn’t lose his temper today. “Not really,” he said tightly. But then went ahead and elaborated anyway. “I don’t want you reporting back to Dr. Piper on my behalf.” He waited for McCoy’s reply expectantly, but when the silence stretched between them he turned around again.

McCoy pulled back. “Jim, I’m serious about keeping your head still,” he said impatiently, flipping the device off. “If I keep hitting your ear you’ll end up looking like a Caitian.” This time he didn’t guide Jim’s head, instead he waited, patiently, until Jim turned his head again. 

McCoy pressed the device back against Jim’s head. “I take it you’re angry at me about something.” 

“I’m not angry, I’m annoyed,” Jim replied hotly, but he kept his head still like he was told. “I don’t like being blindsided. During Svoboda’s surgery, Mark...I mean, Dr. Piper was asking me questions about things he couldn’t possibly know.” 

“About your insomnia,” McCoy said knowingly, and though it sounded like an admittance of guilt in Jim’s ears, McCoy’s tone was matter-of-fact and dry. 

“Must be convenient, relaying information back and forth like that,” Jim said, doubling down. “Does he return the favor for your patients?” 

“Jesus, Jim,” McCoy sounded annoyed, and Jim wasn’t sure whether that was the reaction he was aiming for. “Did it occur to you, for even a second, that he asked me about it specifically? Or that I assumed he knew about it, because he’s your doctor?” 

Jim said nothing, feeling exactly like the ass he was making of himself. 

“Of course not,” McCoy said, drawing his own conclusions from Jim’s silence. “Because it’s a lot more fun to jump down my throat than using that big brain of yours.” He let out a sigh, and his next words were kinder, as if none of his earlier frustrations had remained. “Jim, I don’t take doctor-patient confidentiality lightly. Had I known you only told me, I would’ve kept it to myself.”

Jim was thankful he didn’t have to look McCoy in the eyes while he clumsily tried to undo the damage of his own words. “I would have liked to have known. That you told him,” he said softly. 

“As is your right,” McCoy said. “I betrayed your trust and for that I truly am sorry.” 

Jim didn’t know what he wanted, but McCoy's apology had stirred up his guilt even more and he swallowed his pride. “I’m sorry too,” he said. “I’m just--” 

“Tired?” McCoy tried helpfully. 

“Yeah,” Jim said with a wry smile. 

They didn’t say anything for a while after that. Jim, for the life of him, didn’t know what else to say, and didn’t trust himself to strike up another conversation at the risk of saying the wrong thing, yet again. Besides, McCoy’s touch was oddly comforting, and he was starting to feel sleepy in his chair, his eyelids fluttering as he concentrated on keeping his head still. 

He must have dozed off because he startled slightly when McCoy touched his shoulder. “Finished.” he said, turning the device off and looking at Jim with a knowing smile. “Had a nice nap?” 

Jim stifled a yawn. “I just closed my eyes for a bit,” he said defensively.

“Of course you did,” McCoy replied, putting away the equipment with habitual quickness before throwing Jim his jacket. “Fancy a drink?” 

Jim blinked profusely, feeling another yawn coming up. “What time is it,” he asked, immediately answering his own question when he glanced at the clock. “McCoy, it’s three o ‘clock.” 

McCoy rolled his eyes. “Captain Kirk, we’re on a starbase,” he said, his tone mocking. “Time is a social construct here.” 

Jim chuckled. Technically, Yorktown was set to a time standard based on Earth’s rotation, which was very real. “So it is.” 

*

Nor’s had to be the dingiest bar Yorktown had to offer. Surprisingly close to Jim’s apartment in a residential area, it was hidden between two high-rise buildings and down a flight of stairs that would normally lead to one of the maintenance shafts that kept Yorktown running. It looked down on one of Yorktown’s space lanes, a huge chasm below them. 

Jim moved to the far window and watched as a large Hiawatha-type frigate passed through. 

“Great view, right?” McCoy said as he walked over to join Jim.

“Amazing,” Jim said, moving closer to the glass to see if another ship was coming in.

“No touching the window!” 

Jim startled at the grating voice of the Tellarite behind the bar and he leaned back. “Sorry!” 

“That’s the great Nor himself,” McCoy told him with a low voice, waving at the old blonde-haired owner who glared at them both with his beady black eyes. “Don’t worry, if he tries to pick a fight with you it means he likes you.” 

McCoy picked a table in the middle of the room, closest to the window. “I’m pretty sure he argued his way out of shutting the place down,” McCoy explained, catching Jim staring at the Tellarite, who had returned to his stool behind the bar and was dozing off. “Nor!” McCoy whistled and Nor opened his eyes. “Are you running a business here or what?” 

Nor narrowed his eyes but stood up, grumbling to himself as he picked up a PADD and walked up to their table. “What’ll it be?” he asked.

McCoy ordered his usual Earth whiskey and looked at Jim expectantly. “Did Piper clear you for drinking?” 

“Of course,” Jim said, pumping his fist. “Fit for duty, fit for drinking.” 

McCoy smirked and turned to Nor. “He’ll have the same.” 

Nor returned with two glasses and a dusty half-empty bottle of bourbon which he left at the table on the condition that McCoy wouldn’t wake him up again, then settled back into his stool, seemingly falling back asleep instantly. 

“I love this place,” McCoy said, taking the bottle to add a little more to his glass, measuring the content with his finger and doing the same for Jim. “Cheers.” He softly clicked their glasses together and took a sip. 

Jim followed suit, appreciating the first taste of something other than water and decaffeinated coffee. 

“Svoboda’s parents told me you reached out to them,” McCoy said, his glass still hovering by his lips as he spoke. 

Jim looked up at McCoy. The mention of Svoboda still gave his body a faint shock of adrenaline, even though he was safe and far removed from Rigelius VII . “I did,” he said, setting his own glass down slowly. 

Contacting Svoboda’s parents had been even tougher than Jim thought it would be. Svoboda’s emergency contact was his roommate, a young cadet specialized in Engineering. Jim had asked him not to contact his parents, in an attempt to spare the kid from having to bear the burden of telling them first. 

Nikola Svoboda’s parents were farmers who grew a multitude of grains on the eastern European peninsula. They’d never been off-world, never even dreamed of a son who would be living by the edge of charted space.

Svoboda had once confided in Jim that his parents were beyond proud that he was working with one of the highest decorated officers of the Federation. And even though Jim hadn’t reacted much at the time, he thought about it when he saw Svoboda’s mother on the vid screen blanch at the sight of him, then attempted to flatten her hair, yelling at her husband in their native language until he sat in the frame next to her. 

The best news Jim could offer Svoboda’s parents was that their son, who could take down an Andorian twice his size at one point, could feel his toes and was heading home. 

“They spoke very highly of you,” McCoy continued when Jim didn’t say anything. “Called you a hero, for what you did for their son.” 

“Hmm,” Jim replied, and he took another sip from his glass, so he wouldn’t have to say anything else. Svoboda’s parents had taken from Jim’s detailed recount of what happened what they wanted. To his horror they thanked him profusely for saving the boy’s life, conveniently forgetting who put him in that situation in the first place. 

Jim hadn’t even tried to correct them. If they needed him to be the hero of the story, that’s what he’d be. He could bear that and the blame if that’s what was asked of him, but that didn’t mean that he liked it. 

“Would’ve been easier if they blamed you, wouldn’t it?” McCoy asked. 

Jim looked at him, stunned at the way McCoy’s words seemed to have echoed his thoughts. 

“Don’t act so surprised,” McCoy said when he caught the expression on Jim’s face. “You seem pretty determined to carry the blame for what happened. It’s hard not to notice.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if I’d just kept him here,” Jim said defensively. “Like you told me.” 

McCoy sighed. “Jim, I love being right as much as the next person, but I don’t think what happened to Svoboda was due to his inexperience. And if you do, you’re selling both you and Svoboda a little short,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “He was managing just fine on that hellhole of a planet for five days. Just like you said he would.” 

Jim scoffed. “And on the sixth, he broke his back.” 

“He got into an accident,” McCoy said firmly. “It could’ve happened to anyone. And need I remind you that even then he did everything by the book and managed to call for help.” 

“Some help I was,” Jim muttered, his mind already conjuring up dreadful images embedded in his memory. “I managed to get us both out through dumb luck. Don’t pretend like I saved his life.” 

McCoy snorted. “Hey now, I’m the one who saved his life,” he said with a slight smirk on his face. “Yours too. You’re welcome.” 

“McCoy, don’t joke. I’m being serious,” Jim said. He took his glass, knocked back his drink and leaned forward to grab the bottle when McCoy swiped it away before he could, holding it over his head and outside of Jim’s grasp. 

“Who said I was joking?” he asked Jim with an arched brow. “You got him out of there. That’s your job.” He lowered the bottle and refilled Jim’s glass generously. “And I patched the both of you up. That’s my job.” He neatly lined his glass next to Jim’s and refilled it till they were level. “I’m not sure what Starfleet command considers a successful mission, and to be honest I don’t really care. In my line of work, we tend to celebrate when no one dies.” Taking up his glass he looked at Jim, waiting patiently for him to do the same. Reluctantly, Jim raised his glass, and met McCoy’s gaze. “We’re Starfleet, Jim. There will be more than enough opportunities to think back on our past failures. This isn’t one of them. OK?” 

Jim swallowed, too stubborn to agree, but too hurt not to accept the reprieve offered to him. He nodded and clicked their glasses together. When McCoy moved the glass to his lips, he didn’t look away. 

McCoy told Jim about Svoboda’s rehabilitation progress. As Svoboda’s surgeon, he was still closely monitoring Svoboda’s medical records, and explained in lengthy detail what would happen once Svoboda’s medical ship reached Earth. Jim listened, only occasionally asking a question here and there. It wasn’t like a weight had been lifted after that, not by a long shot, but it did feel less heavy than before. Aided perhaps by the liquor, that was having a stronger effect on him than usual and was dulling his mind. 

When McCoy asked him about his experience in speaking with Svoboda’s parents, he seemed to have lost all his earlier reservations and spoke truthfully about how uncomfortable their misplaced gratitude and hero worship made him feel. 

“Do you ever get used to people recognizing you as the hero of the Federation?” McCoy asked.

Jim thought for a moment. “I do,” he decided. “But I never grow to enjoy it.” 

McCoy smiled at him. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re nothing like those promotional holo’s made you out to be.” He squared his shoulders back and lowered his voice as he pointed at Jim. “My name is James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the Starship Enterprise.” 

Jim groaned. Five years ago, during the aftermath of the destruction of Vulcan, Starfleet had ordered him to make a number of promotional videos in order to boost the morale of young new recruits. “I’m sorry you had to see those.” 

McCoy laughed. “They made us run it for the interns back at the hospital. My favorite was the one on the bridge. What was that thing you said...second star to the right--” 

“And straight on till morning,” Jim said with a wince, and watched McCoy laugh at his expense, though he didn’t really seem to mind. 

“Did you make that up?” McCoy asked. 

Jim frowned. “Are you kidding me? I would never, ever say that,” he said indignantly. “Part of the admiralty wasn’t so keen on letting me have my own ship back then, let alone the flagship. They figured they’d let me jump through as many hoops as they could think of before the paperwork went through.” 

“Guess that didn’t work as well for them as they’d hoped.” 

Jim shook his head. “I was not letting my girl go, now that I finally had her.” 

McCoy stared at him. “You talk about your ship like it’s a living thing.” 

“She is,” Jim said, and then, aware of his choice of words rectified himself. “Or was.” 

“Will be,” McCoy offered. 

Jim considered it for a second before giving a short nod. “Will be.” The words sounded oddly hopeful even coming from his own mouth. And with it a question came to him that he’d been meaning to ask McCoy for a long time. “Why are you being so nice to me?” 

McCoy’s brows arched high before drawing down into a deep frown. “Am I not supposed to be?” he asked.

Jim shrugged. “I’m not exactly easy-going. And I haven’t exactly been that nice to you.” 

At Jim’s words, McCoy sighed, deep and obvious. “Jim. You think too much,” he said sternly. “You like to drink, you make me laugh and you’re not an idiot.” He took another sip from his glass and nudged towards the window when another starship moved into view. “Do you think the Vulcans know their cruisers look distinctly phallic or is it just a happy coincidence?” 

Jim nearly choked on his drink and laughed more than he had in months. 

They continued to watch starships passing through the lane, none of them safe from McCoy’s pronounced and hilarious judgements, until the bottle of bourbon was empty. Jim was comfortably buzzed, a little more so than he’d normally be. He didn’t mind spending a few hours more at Nor’s, which was now officially his favorite place in Yorktown, but had to agree when McCoy suggested that maybe they not crawl back to their respective homes this time. 

When they ascended back to the Yorktown’s surface, the base’s light was dimming. It was about seven ‘o clock, the base’s temperature had dropped enough for even Jim to close his jacket, while McCoy pulled his collar up and shivered. They walked back in the direction of Jim’s apartment which was opposite to the area’s metro station, talking animatedly, the effect of the cool air sobering their slight tipsiness. 

McCoy whistled at the sight of Jim’s apartment complex. “Is this their apology for stuffing you in those tin cans in a starship?” 

Jim shoved him. “Shut up,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a single bedroom. Nothing fancy.” 

“Bet it has windows,” McCoy replied using his hand as a visor as he looked up. 

“It does,” Jim said with a chuckle. “Windows, and a door, and a--” he lost his train of thought when he looked over to the apartment’s entrance. Lelal was standing by the door, looking straight at him and then pointedly to McCoy, who seemed not to notice. “You know what, I’ll show you sometime,” Jim said quickly, and he put a hand on McCoy’s shoulder as he steered him the other way, not unlike McCoy had done in the hospital, in the direction of the metro station. 

McCoy let Jim steer him to the metro station, though he did look at him funny, and turned back to the building once or twice before they were up on the platform. 

“So,” Jim said, relieved by what he thought was a disaster waiting to happen. “Thanks for the drink.” 

“Anytime,” McCoy replied. He was still looking at him funny, but the metro was pulling up at the station and he had to get in. 

Jim waited for the doors to close and waved as the metro shot away from the station before turning and walking back to his apartment. 

Lelal was waiting for him with her hands in her sides. “You could’ve let me in first you know,” she said with a frown. 

*

Lelal and Jim had a lot of things in common. 

They were both stubborn and confident, sometimes to the point of arrogance, they hated being wrong more than anything in the world, and they knew how to play hard when it counted. 

“You should abstain more often,” she said, patting Jim’s side like he was a good workhorse, before rolling out of the bed with her usual grace. Then she yanked Jim’s duvet clean off the mattress and wrapped herself in it as she waddled into the living room, ducking just in time to evade the pillow Jim threw at her. 

Jim shivered and moved to the edge of the bed, patting the floor until he found his shirt and shorts and put them on. 

He was still trying to figure out where the front of his shirt was when Lelal reemerged in the doorway. 

“Pears, Jim. How unprecedented,” she said approvingly, holding one of them carefully by the stem between her fingers as she lay down in the middle of the bed and unraveled herself from the blanket. Laying on her back on top of the covers she ran her thumb over the pear’s skin, her nail digging in the flesh to check its ripeness. “So,” she began. “Who is he?” 

Jim turned to his side, resting on his elbow so he could look at Lelal. “Who’s who?” 

Lelal turned too, mimicking his pose. “The guy you were shoving in the opposite direction at the sight of me.” 

“Ah,” Jim replied. He’d expected Lelal’s inquiry sooner, but apparently, she had her priorities straight. “He was my CMO during the training mission on Rigelius VII.”

“He’s very attractive,” Lelal said, her mouth curved in a mischievous half-smile. “Don’t you think so?”

Jim smiled back, knowing when he was being baited. “Are you looking to replace me?” he asked.

Lelal rolled her eyes, clearly uninterested in Jim’s diverting. “No. Are you?” A second later her smile returned when she took a bite from her pear, the juice trickling from the side of her mouth. They were non-synthesized from the garden of the L'oro Della Frontiera and almost as good as they would be on Earth, a place that Lelal, for all her lifetimes, had never been. “You know I wouldn’t care if you hooked up with someone else, right?” she said between chews, her attention on pear’s white flesh as she studied it in the light. 

“That’s generous of you,” Jim said. He shifted so he could run a finger over Lelal’s neck to catch the drop as it continued its journey down her chest. 

Lelal shuddered at the touch and sighed deeply as she took another bite. “Just making sure you know I wouldn’t be insulted,” she continued, her words slightly garbled from her full mouth. 

Jim had rolled over on to his stomach, close enough so he could press his lips against spots on Lelal’s shoulder, sucking at the skin as he slowly made his way up. “Duly noted,” he said in the crease of her neck, lamenting the fact that he wasn’t allowed to touch the skin there. 

Before he could try to break this rule Lelal pulled away by rolling unto her back and looked at Jim. “I mean, it’s not like we ever established any rules on that.” 

Jim sighed. “Lee, did you come here so we could spend the night talking about another guy?” 

Lelal sat up, pulling the sheets up to her armpits and licked her lips. “We’re pillow talking,” she said simply. “So, he’s a doctor, what else?” 

Defeated, Jim stuffed a pillow under his chest, cradling it with his arms to make his position more comfortable. “What else is there?” 

“Is he a friend of yours?” 

Jim thought for a moment. “I think so,” he replied. 

Lelal arched her brows. “You think so?”

Jim buried his chin in his pillow and shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s complicated.” 

“How is it complicated?” Lelal asked, furrowing her brow.

“I don’t know, Lee,” Jim replied, feeling slightly exasperated by her prodding. “It just is. OK?”

Lelal shrugged. “Seems more like you’re overthinking it.” 

Jim looked at her in surprise. “You know he told me something similar earlier today.” 

“So, he’s got you figured out,” Lelal said, her voice inclining towards disinterest on the topic. Her eyes widened when Jim suddenly shot up.

“That’s just it,” he said sharply, sitting back on his knees, his pillow still clutched tightly in his arms. “I don’t tell him anything but every time he says something it’s like…” he waved his hand up weirdly trying to find the right word. “Like he’s reading my mind.” 

Lelal was watching him, wide-eyed and confused. “And that’s...bad?” she asked carefully.

“Yes!” Jim replied. “It’s weird and intrusive.” 

“But not enough to stop you from spending time with him.” 

Jim nodded. “He’s nice. I mean really nice. Kind of a jerk too, but in a good way.” He looked at Lelal, who was both eating and staring at him like he was losing his mind. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s bothering me,” he said defensively. “And I wouldn’t be talking about it if you hadn’t asked me.” 

Lelal pursed her lips. “Ok,” she said slowly. “So, do you know just what it is that’s bothering you about him?”

Jim didn’t need time to think that through, it’d been on his mind for weeks by now. “I feel like he’s got something on me, while I can’t seem to figure him out at all,” he admitted begrudgingly. “It puts me at a disadvantage.” 

Lelal narrowed her eyes. “What, like a strategic disadvantage?” she asked incredulously. “Is this a friendship or 3D chess?” 

Jim rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You kind of did,” Lelal said decisively. She turned around, stretching so she could place the pear’s core on the nightstand at the side of the bed, then turned her attention back to Jim with a grave expression on her face. “Jim, do you have any friends in Yorktown?” she asked. 

Jim scoffed. “Of course, I have friends in Yorktown.” 

“That you talk to on a regular basis? Who isn’t me?” Lelal clarified. Waiting for his reply, she stared at Jim, who could only think of Sulu’s long declined dinner dates and the sporadic calls from his first officer back on New Vulcan. “That’s what I thought,” Lelal said. 

She sat up, letting the sheet fall from her naked form and moved so she could sit opposite Jim and look him in the eye. For a second Jim thought she was sick of their conversation and getting ready for another round. Only her hands moved straight to his cheeks, her cold fingers still sticky and wet as he pressed his cheeks together. “Jim, I think your sudden insecurity is cute, I really do. But unless you’re madly, deeply in love with the guy, I don’t see any reason why you’re supposed to make it more complicated than it actually is,” she said sternly. “Nod if you understand.” 

Jim nodded, and leaned back to release himself from Lelal’s surprisingly strong grip. 

Lelal leaned over and gave Jim a quick kiss on his lips. “Good.” Moving closer, she pressed her body against Jim’s until he leaned on his back, unfolding his legs from under him as they bent uncomfortably under their weight. Lelal hugged him, pressing her body close to his, one hand combing gently through his hair and over his scalp as she looked at him. “Don’t worry so much, Jim,” she whispered, while her hands found the patch of short hair at the side of his head, her nails scratching softly at the skin there. 

Jim shuddered at the touch and closed his eyes. He listened to Lelal’s hitched breath as he circled his hips and thought to himself fleetingly that the touch wasn’t quite the same.


End file.
